Changing the D3 paradigm - Bigger and Better

[homeinvasion]

@GrumpySmurf1002

The reward structure in PvP is such that you can compete for the cover you need. A 1* player competes for 2* characters, 2s compete for 3, and 3* competes for the top prize of a 4*.

there is little fair in the current system, and little incentive, as a 1 - 2 star transition, I had a point where wall to wall 166 would come up and I clearly remember on like day 12 a 250 level Thor, what is that guy competing for in 2 star transition? I will tell you an excellent example of something similar that happened in a Korean PVP MMO.

Everyone started in a nice safe non PVP city, then when you got to level 20 you could leave the city and progress to level 100 in the big bad PVP world, it was this revolutionary new game design, the devs thought it a nice safe haven free from ganks that the high levels couldn’t enter. What happened was the first few hundred characters out of the city formed an oligopoly and ganked everyone that tried to leave en mass. They formed this alliance and actually set up 24 hour a day rosters of a minimum of five players that had to do ‘guard duty’ for a certain amount of time while everyone else in the guild power leveled. After a few months they had to completely shut down the game because they only had 200 subscribers. All the old school are throwing their arms in the air that they don’t want change, of course they don’t, they get the lion’s share. They had easier and better access to covers that new players can’t get near.

Don’t get me wrong here, there are excellent examples of revolutionary game redesign that stopped games in their track, I think it was Star Wars Galaxies that threw out the crafting system that wiped away hundreds of hours of game play and killed the game dead in 1 patch. which is why I will say this loud and clear, that if they are going to change it dramatically they need to equitably and equally reimburse the players that they have. I seriously suggest they look at everything of worth in the game and work out a fair method of transfer. if they go to level 300 then for every cover you have you get 20 in the new system, if they are making HP cheaper then multiply everyone’s stockpile to be worth an equal amount, if they make roster slots free then give everyone HP of equal value, if they get rid of ISO work out a conversion rate to HP and reimburse peeps.

D3 obviously didn’t plan far ahead, and it is becoming unwieldy. I mean look at all this mess with not adding new characters to tokens because they hadn’t planned on getting this far. You watch as soon as the Cmags and daken patch go through everyone will be moaning about Hood being required and OP and if you don’t have him you cant compete. What I am ultimately saying is that few companies that find instant success are able to keep up because their road map ran out many miles ago and talent and a good product only go so far.

[GrumpySmurf1002]

@homeinvasion

there is little fair in the current system, and little incentive, as a 1 - 2 star transition, I had a point where wall to wall 166 would come up and I clearly remember on like day 12 a 250 level Thor, what is that guy competing for in 2 star transition? I will tell you an excellent example of something similar that happened in a Korean PVP MMO.

Most of this story may as well have been in Korean. Most of it has no correlation to MPQ.

What you’re describing is only PvP, and again, that’s how it should be. I don’t know how a 1->2* transition is hitting a wall of 166s (you should be hitting a wall of 94s before you even see the 166s), but there’s nothing wrong with there being a point where you can no longer compete until you’ve advanced further in the game. By that point you hit a wall, you should be in the top 200 or so, and can earn a 2* cover to continue your 2* transition. That’s not to mention the 1-> 2* transition is easier than it has ever been right now, with them dropping randomly from events anyway.

Players that find and join the game today have access to covers in the form of Prologue, PvE, battle drops from PvP, and Seasonal Progression (with a guaranteed 3* + a 10-pack which is the about the best thing a new player can earn). There are alliances that will welcome new players that try hard to help them get more covers. There’s nothing preventing them from advancing. They can speed up the process at any point by spending money as is.

The only thing they can’t do is compete for the 4* characters at the top of the food chain. And there’s no good explanation for why they should be able to, when that’s the end game. To counter your analogy with another semi-unrelated one, this is like playing Final Fantasy or even the Legend of Zelda and saying “I don’t want to find all this stuff, let me just have access to everything and I’ll go fight the final bosses now.” Pretty sure both of those games would lose their appeal very quickly if you could.

[h4n1s]

@GrumpySmurf1002

The only thing they can’t do is compete for the 4* characters at the top of the food chain. And there’s no good explanation for why they should be able to, when that’s the end game. To counter your analogy with another semi-unrelated one, this is like playing Final Fantasy or even the Legend of Zelda and saying “I don’t want to find all this stuff, let me just have access to everything and I’ll go fight the final bosses now.” Pretty sure both of those games would lose their appeal very quickly if you could.

Nice analogy - but when you play final fantasy, the opponents strength increases naturally all the way up. What you did describe is a problem - it is very easy to complete 1* → 2* transition, the progress is pretty smooth. Transition to 3* or even 4* is hundred miles long journey, and you don’t wish to fight boars in woods for 150 days just to be ready do defeat dragon. I am playing this game for nearly a year, few hours a day, but without buying covers, competing for the 3* rewards is nothing less but difficult. With amount of 3* characters in the game and therefore equal amount of featured PvPs if you can’t finish in top 25 your journey to max your 1st 3* character may be very painful and very long (and often dependent on random from tokens).

[system]

The game is indeed very insufficiently P2W. The only thing that approaches it is the shield hopping/Sentry bombing but that’s light by P2W standards and it really should be not at all or all the way instead of being somewhere halfway in between. However after looking at games I think what happens is ‘insufficiently P2W’ is still better than ‘badly P2W’. It’s not so much as that giving stuff away for free is beneficial but that doing that at least you haven’t totally screwed up anything yet. I saw an analyst saying you shouldn’t assume the model of say, LoL, is automatically good because the game is somehow impossibly big so no matter how bad their monetization model is, it’ll still be profitable. But this also applies to the other end of the spectrum. Whatever makes Farmville or Candy Crush Saga successful isn’t because they continue to beat you on the head until you give them money, even though they seem to do a lot of that.

But surely there’s some low hanging fruit for better monetziation like a new PvE campaign (which would just be Simulator with cutscenes) or new skins for character that must be pretty safe and cheap to implement.

[system]

@h4n1s

@stephen43084

Two words: phone app.

one word: What?

The suggestions are fine for a console game. This is a phone app that already takes a lot of memory and requires Internet to play. These changes are asking for a lot of an app, when most phone apps are fads.

[jojeda654]

@stephen43084

The suggestions are fine for a console game. This is a phone app that already takes a lot of memory and requires Internet to play. These changes are asking for a lot of an app, when most phone apps are fads.

Ah. What I thought you were hinting at was landscape mode.

[homeinvasion]

@stephen43084

@h4n1s

@stephen43084

Two words: phone app.

one word: What?

The suggestions are fine for a console game. This is a phone app that already takes a lot of memory and requires Internet to play. These changes are asking for a lot of an app, when most phone apps are fads.

I did say this in the first paragraph. “Expand the steam version and move into Xbox and Playstation territory. Then have a lite version for mobiles.”

[GrumpySmurf1002]

@h4n1s

Nice analogy - but when you play final fantasy, the opponents strength increases naturally all the way up. What you did describe is a problem - it is very easy to complete 1* → 2* transition, the progress is pretty smooth. Transition to 3* or even 4* is hundred miles long journey, and you don’t wish to fight boars in woods for 150 days just to be ready do defeat dragon. I am playing this game for nearly a year, few hours a day, but without buying covers, competing for the 3* rewards is nothing less but difficult. With amount of 3* characters in the game and therefore equal amount of featured PvPs if you can’t finish in top 25 your journey to max your 1st 3* character may be very painful and very long (and often dependent on random from tokens).

Fair enough, it’s definitely not a quick transition. That said, I started tracking all covers acquired in mid-June. I’m up to around 130-140 that are 3/4*. (forget the exact number, around 12% of around 1200 or so). That’s without a top 100 alliance for 95% of it, as mine has mostly taken the summer off from true competition. So there’s no shortage of covers being given away. Now, 28 characters and 140 covers is only about 5 per on average, so that could probably still be improved.

At the same time, in keeping with the analogy, FF is designed with a certain amount of game play built in, somewhere 50-75hrs of content, depending on your eagerness to achieve 100%, and excluding replay. MPQ has no such goal. Much like other micro-transaction games, its goal is to sustain for as long as humanly possible. If you move to a system as the OP suggests, then there’s little need to stick with the game very long, as you’ll have accomplished everything there is quickly. As it is, you have many top players leaving because there’s nothing left for them to do, nor promise that there will be.

That’s a much larger problem than the monetization and cover distribution systems. The elimination of Dark Reign signals something on the horizon, but if it’s just the same ol PvE with a few new storylines, I can’t imagine that’s going to do much for business.

[homeinvasion]

@GrumpySmurf1002

If you move to a system as the OP suggests, then there’s little need to stick with the game very long, as you’ll have accomplished everything there is quickly.

Really? what part of 200 characters and 50 different never ending game modes gave you that impression?

[HailMary]

@homeinvasion

Firstly, how do you earn a cover? the 200 day crowd have all the end game tied up and it is actually impossible without buying in, atm. You start a new account and show me a max Sentry without buying and I will delete this post, straight up.

Why is “new accounts should get maxed-out top-tier characters for free” your new standard for “good”? In what progression-based game, ever, is this anything close to an ideal? Why is that the sole viable alternative to “let anyone buy any cover they want whenever”?

@homeinvasion

The entire game structure is the rich get richer the poor get poorer, the older gamers win all the events and get all the cover rewards, which makes them stronger and more able to win, which makes the gap wider for new players and winning anything in 3 star land a dim dream. Secondly you missed the point, I am advocating the ability to buy in if wanted or to get that one cover that you always miss out on.

You’re advocating being able to buy any cover at any time without “earning” it first.

@homeinvasion

Seen that other post with I’m on day… I dont have…

You’ll notice quite a few older gamers commented on that thread.

@homeinvasion

what context is this? I am saying they can’t change anything in their business offering without bringing a simple balance to the game first, insert 5,000 Nerf this buff that forum posts. make a simple replicating model and stick to it. I love the diverse nature of the game and wouldn’t see it dumbed down for a max Nick Fury.

A “replicating model” in the way you’ve described would essentially drastically reduce the variety of ability mechanics allowed. How does one “simply balance” Thunder Strike’s yellow-generation ability? How do you balance the DP-Points-powered amped-up WHALES AOE? I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s hardly “simple.”

@homeinvasion

By currencies I included all the different unwanted crap you get for a win; Iso, boosts, team ups, HP, covers, have one clearly defined reward system. If I go into this game I will win 100 HP, not I win this Lightning round and got a token that turns into my 500th yelena.

So by “currency,” you mean "everything you could possibly with said currency. That’s like counting iPhones, whole-grain bread, tennis balls as separate currencies because you have the ability to buy them with actual currencies.

The event reward system is pretty cut-and-dry. From winning fights, you get a TUP from a slain enemy, and Iso/a lower-tier cover. I think this ties into the “MPQ needs to explain things better in-game” argument, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

@homeinvasion

Even playing normally you have to log off and on just to refresh health packs unless you want to buy a game extension 5 pack. I am trying to say that they should remove any barrier to entry for the game, anything that gets in the way of people playing should be removed.

… and if people want to buy a health pack 5-pack, sell it to them. How does your core point not rebut your own sub-point?

@homeinvasion

Ok I am talking about a redesign. 300 covers to max a character (100 per color) and remove iso leveling. They would need to convert existing covers if they changed over so level 5 = a new level 100, 3 covers = 60 basically every cover you have now would become 20. Then sell the covers at 1 dollar each. you can then make HP purely by playing or spending money if you want, I envisage it as people will get to a level by osmosis playing then top up at the end for some of their characters. Honestly it is the best I could think of that balanced play/ Pay/ ease of entry/ top down simple design. I am way open for suggestions here, and think any healthy debate on the issue is good for the game that we both love.

Alright, I suspected that you were going for an Iso hybrid proposal. Is the existence of a meaningful cover system really that confusing? Or, do you just want to be able to cheaply buy a max Sentry right off the bat?

@homeinvasion

price elasticity of demand is an excellent point in my argument, thanks for raising it. No demand and widening gaps between the day 200 crowd and new crowd means less new players that want to invest time or money which directly forces the developers to come up with more god awful True healing, sharding, shield hop mechanics to make money off their dwindling player base. Surely it is better to throw open the doors and welcome everyone in which increases financial flow through the gates of D3 and we all get a better, more enjoyable, perpetually expanding, thriving game.

Do you have any actual evidence that: 1. fewer new players than before actually want to invest money after compensating for saturation effects, and 2. True Healing, sharding, etc. meaningfully discourages new players from spending money? Sharding largely benefits new players (truly new players, not “I have 4 L94 chars and a L130 3*, and I’m gonna count myself as a newbie” players) and True Healing hurt no one who wasn’t relying on OBW/Spidey to Prologue-heal.

MPQ already “welcomes everyone in.” Making every single event an epic grindfest by removing health packs/node refreshes is going to turn the game into a mind-numbing slog. Removing shields would hurt Euro players even more than the current event times do. Letting anyone buy any cover at any time would end up locking out low spenders/F2P from the game, since anyone could simply buy an entire top-tier roster on Day 1.

[GrumpySmurf1002]

@homeinvasion

@GrumpySmurf1002

If you move to a system as the OP suggests, then there’s little need to stick with the game very long, as you’ll have accomplished everything there is quickly.

Really? what part of 200 characters and 50 different never ending game modes gave you that impression?

I see nothing about 50 never ending game modes. I see 13 listed, several of which already exist in some form; a few that may as well be the same thing (what’s the difference between trial and casual play really?).

As for the character system, N.Polarity already covered most of my thoughts, with the addition that opening everything up in a shop from the beginning means there’s nothing to gain from having a game mode. HP is not a sufficient enough reward to promote game play. If I want to play a game with an element of chance in order to win a currency (possibly wagering my own currency in the form of covers), I’m not going to choose MPQ as that option. That’s what Vegas is for.

[system]

This would be a great model for MPQII. Will not work for MPQ. Too many people have too much invested in the current system. Throwing out the old in favor of something like this would be tumultuous.

I love the idea of picking characters you like and working towards leveling them up buying covers etc. Making people play with a character before it can level up I like too. I would say make 90% of every character buyable from day one with more added as they go. But still have the rare and super rare guys who can only be gotten from rewards.

The ability to decide what team you want to work on and that moment get started getting covers and leveling people up and playing with that team right away would be major. The advantage for veterans would primarily be breadth of roster. Sure it would be pretty easy to max out a team of 3 but you would still have to stop when that team gets hurt. It could be really good. Even better than MPQ is now, but as I said before there is no way they could transition the current game into something like you have laid out.

[system]

@jojeda654

@stephen43084

The suggestions are fine for a console game. This is a phone app that already takes a lot of memory and requires Internet to play. These changes are asking for a lot of an app, when most phone apps are fads.

Ah. What I thought you were hinting at was landscape mode.

That would be dangerous. Especially on my tablet, where I could see the AI’s AP count without scrolling.

[h4n1s]

@GrumpySmurf1002

@h4n1s

Nice analogy - but when you play final fantasy, the opponents strength increases naturally all the way up. What you did describe is a problem - it is very easy to complete 1* → 2* transition, the progress is pretty smooth. Transition to 3* or even 4* is hundred miles long journey, and you don’t wish to fight boars in woods for 150 days just to be ready do defeat dragon. I am playing this game for nearly a year, few hours a day, but without buying covers, competing for the 3* rewards is nothing less but difficult. With amount of 3* characters in the game and therefore equal amount of featured PvPs if you can’t finish in top 25 your journey to max your 1st 3* character may be very painful and very long (and often dependent on random from tokens).

Fair enough, it’s definitely not a quick transition. That said, I started tracking all covers acquired in mid-June. I’m up to around 130-140 that are 3/4*. (forget the exact number, around 12% of around 1200 or so). That’s without a top 100 alliance for 95% of it, as mine has mostly taken the summer off from true competition. So there’s no shortage of covers being given away. Now, 28 characters and 140 covers is only about 5 per on average, so that could probably still be improved.

At the same time, in keeping with the analogy, FF is designed with a certain amount of game play built in, somewhere 50-75hrs of content, depending on your eagerness to achieve 100%, and excluding replay. MPQ has no such goal. Much like other micro-transaction games, its goal is to sustain for as long as humanly possible. If you move to a system as the OP suggests, then there’s little need to stick with the game very long, as you’ll have accomplished everything there is quickly. As it is, you have many top players leaving because there’s nothing left for them to do, nor promise that there will be.

That’s a much larger problem than the monetization and cover distribution systems. The elimination of Dark Reign signals something on the horizon, but if it’s just the same ol PvE with a few new storylines, I can’t imagine that’s going to do much for business.

Exactly, there’s not a problem with ‘not enough’ 3* characters. There’s a problem in game graduation and stereotype. If you have all of your characters maxed a new 3* character is not likely going to change your mindset. Introducing achievements system, some RPG approach with storyline, alliance raids (shakes and fidget style maybe?), some algorithm based generated fights or missions (why Diablo is keeping you playing it for fourth or fifth time even you completed the whole game and killed the boss), you don’t need to invent new characters with graphics every month just invent more play-styles, or imagine that at the start of each season you could have picked up to 3 characters which you would have boosted of some sort for all PVE or PVPs or just something, which would make the game attractive long term…