If they want people to spend money on the game, they need to do a few key things:
First, they need to make permanent available content instead of constant limited window competitions. All we do is have competitions. There isn’t any game in this game. I’m unlikely to spend any more money on this game right now because I honestly can’t tell what my money would be supporting. Prodigal Sun is just disappointing. The reskin of Heroic Oscorp was cooler and more inventive than Prodigal Sun. So give us more game modes, or at least more chapters in the story mode, so that we’re actually paying for permanent content.
Second, and relatedly, put some bloody effort into character creation. Sentry’s countdown tile cascading move is neat, but his moveset is so terribly self-destructive that he’s not super appealing. To boot, he’s R/Y/G–a color combination I’ve seen so many times that it’s almost become invisible to me. Give us characters worth acquiring because they’re interesting and new, not because they do more damage/have more health than the previous characters we had access to in those colors. Falcon was certainly interesting. But he’s an island of interesting character development in a sea of repetition.
I think this would be awesome but can you imagine the revolt if more people found their way to the forums?!?! people who have been banging their head against the wall trying to figure this sick game out will all of a sudden realize they are not alone! there would be blood in the streets.
Just an FYI to some people - after talking with them at PAX, it’s pretty clear they aren’t going to be putting every logical character in the game yet. Aside from Deadpool (I seriously can’t fathom any reason to not have him in the game, he’s both popular and a key character in Dark Reign), they’re seemingly catering towards as much fanservice as possible, and they have no intention of revisiting older characters to bring them up to par. They feel IM40 is “fine” compared to current characters (20 AP + other colors hitting less than 12 black or 14 green is fine, apparently). They tried to get me to buy the line of “Well wasn’t in Dark Reign” when given a response to the question “Who would you like to see in the game?”, despite Hulk and Nick Jr. being in the game, but whatever. They’re trying to repeatedly ride this short term burst of income one after another with either more “features” being hamfisted into Alliances and more power creep (Falcon being a very odd and welcome exception, likely due to the Winter Soldier movie and him being impossible to wrap up as a powerhouse). Their creativity is absurdly lacking, as evidenced from the power combinations and abilities they keep tossing our way, and they’ve done nothing (and have no plans) to incorporate additional game modes to mix it up. In their mindset, “more game modes” is simply making a different character be powered up. It took them 4 freaking months to rebalance Spiderman, god knows how much longer for Cmags, and even longer for the numerous numbers of us that have X-Force chomping at the bit, but he’ll remain a floppy turd for likely until 2015.
Can you imagine how much more fun this game would be if we could actually have legitimate PvP? I wouldn’t even ask for a reward for doing it, just a chance to actually play against an intelligent opponent who won’t match their own game-critical countdown tile the same turn they drop it. That’s just a thought, I think I’ll be hopping off this screeching train in an hour.
Really? Not P2W? I don’t think that phrase means what you think it means…
This game is incredibly pay to win it’s just pay a LOT to win. In fact that’s even something of an exaggeration, just spending enough to buy shields and boosts gives you an enormous advantage over someone who doesn’t. Unless you’re the only person getting incredibly friendly brackets you aren’t winning (or placing all that high) in a PvP event without shielding since the changes and that’s something you can buy. You can buy covers to get a large advantage with new featured heroes, buy ISO to get a level advantage (if you’re mad). The only thing you can’t buy directly is PvE and PvP points which are easier to get if you’ve paid real money to get a better roster…
Back to ignoring Phantron’s posts again and getting on topic…
I guess you’re basically talking about price elasticity of demand. The question is, how much does an increase or decrease in cost (or an increase in chance of a given 3* if you assume that’s the only reason people are buying the cover packs could be equated to a change in price for all intents and purposes) effect the number of packs D3 sell. Since the packs don’t cost D3 anything to make as they would a physical good then you’re simply asking would an increase in rates of 3s in packs (which is equivalent to dropping the price of a given 3 cover cause you’ll buy less packs to get each one) increase total sales…
Answer is don’t know. I suppose the first question is are there more people buying extra packs to try to get covers than there are people not buying the packs because they see them as such poor value for money. Although I want to say they should improve the pack drop rates I suspect the answer might be yes and also the forum is not a great place to canvas for the answer.
IMO you can split potential buyers into 2 sets. The people who do well enough in events to get covers and the ones that don’t.
If you are able to get covers (more common amongst forumites) then 3800 HP for a guaranteed 3* cover is a very bad deal next to 1250Hp to increase a cover you already have. If you, say, got 2/3 colours from the first event then buying 2 ten packs is only a bit better than a 50/50 shot of getting your missing colour even if 1 featured hero cover is guaranteed so it makes more sense IMO to buy specific covers and wait for the next event that gives the colour you want then spend HP shield hopping to get it.
Second set of people have no covers at all and just want to do the essentials in the next PvE which requires the hero. They’ll also see that the next new hero is being given out and he/she will be essential in the PvE after, so if they can get just one cover for the featured hero maybe they can win a new hero cover and they can remove the need to buy packs for the PvE after… I suspect these are the people buying cover 10 packs (hence the ridiculous bracketing change to pander to new players as they are profitable) and I suspect that, after buying one, they will feel they are invested in getting the cover and will buy a second pack “so the money they spent on the first one doesn’t go to waste”
OFC it’s just an assumption but I feel like it makes pretty good sense.
As far as pure 3* packs go I don’t see it happening ever. 3* heroes are essentially as good as it gets right now (2 useless 4s and Fury not out yet assuming he’s any good overall) and they are the carrot on the stick most players are working towards. D3 probably want them to be somewhat hard to get to drive people on. Old diabolical and courageous packs were 1100Hp each (IIRC) which is a bit less than a direct cover buy so they’ve moved to cheaper, less useful packs because I don’t see people parting with 1100 HP for a random 3 when 1250 gets exactly what you want in most cases. No way they’ll give a guaranteed 3* for 200 per pack…
I remember there was a study done on microtrans games showing something along the lines of halving prices doubling sales. Does anyone have the source offhand?
If that was true that’d be a strong argument to NOT have sales because you still make the same amount of money, but having sales will naturally get people to think ‘oh I should just wait for the sale next time’ so it will impact your regular income.
I’m sure demiurge will read this post but I don’t think they will respond to it which is disappointing. So many of us just want them to acknowledge our feedback and have a serious discussion with them about these issues that we keep repeating over and over.
It really feels like despite the thought that goes into them, they simply disappear into the void.
I kind of think we need to draft a statement that many of us can get behind and add that to some kind of petition. The statement doesn’t need to be specific in terms of changes we would like to see, otherwise it would be harder to get wide support. But I think we could at least ask for more of an organized dialogue on some of these issues that keep coming up that demiurge seems to want to ignore for whatever reason.
I’ve said this before but I think a scheduled community catch up would be great. Every couple weeks or even every month. We could post questions in a thread and have them answer the ones that have the highest up votes in addition to an overview of where they see the game, wether they see their recent changes as working or not and where do they want to see improvement.
I also think they should address the new vs veteran player strategy. How important are veteran players to them and what are they planning to do to improve our experience.
D3 experimented with the change to the cover pack with guaranteed heroes, simply as one of many things to try out. Then they found out through their metrics gathering* that people were actually spending more on the modified packs without guaranteed heroes, and with averice on their mind they zealously decided to milk that cow for that magical 1$ ARPDAU they are chasing. To cover up their greed, the official company line is that the metrics indicate that the players don’t like (spending real money on) a guaranteed outcome, because it lacks the excitement and rush of the unknown.
And that, my friends, is a very thinly veiled excuse that holds about as much water as a sieve. To anyone with even the smallest modicum of common sense, it would be clear that the influx in sales surfacing through D3’s metrics can be nothing other than people that were already being pressured into reluctantly purchasing cover packs to get hold of the essential 3* characters for upcoming events, now ponying up double, triple or more for that one lucky shot at obtaining the desired cover.
*) Metrics gathering of which I doubt the legality in the EU, since there is a distinct lack of explicit notice that your purchasing and playing behavior are being monitored and profiled…
Agreed, it is disappointing. I think part of the reason they don’t want to say anything is because then the jig is up. By not saying anything, they can just go on their merry way and are not accountable to anyone.
Once they make a statement, they’re on the hook. They know they are trying to squeeze every dollar out of the player base they can, any way they can and as long as the player base allows them to do this, they will keep squeezing.
Have you ever seen Battlefield Earth? I know some really hated it but a scene popped in my head thinking about all this. It was the scene where they let the prisoners escape so they could monitor them, they were starving and all they could find were some rats to eat. So they ate them. They didn’t want to eat the rats but they had to survive. So here their captors are watching all this, and makes the comment, “look at them, they could have anything on the planet yet they eat rats, disgusting humans” or something like that. So when they recapture them and try to feed them, they gave them rats thinking it was some delicacy or something.
I think there could be balance of making a GREAT game AND making great money. They have tried one way, can we try the other way now?
Also I think actions speak louder than words and I have a sinking feeling no matter what we say or do, its not going to change anything. They have consciously decided to NOT respond to any thing we have posted. So I don’t think any other tactic we try to “make them understand” is going to work at this point. It’s like that cheating girlfriend, how many times are you going to allow them to cheat before you just decide to either live with it or find a new girlfriend. She says she won’t do it again (The company says it will be better with communication and listening to player feedback) but then just turns right around and does the same exact thing.
I agree with everything you are saying. Especially the low pull rates for a featured character. 6% is abysmal I haven’t gotten a 3* character in probably 20 tokens (both event based and heroic tokens)
I suspect that they’re not showing their faces here for a while in the hope that eventually we’ll all forget that we’re pissed, allowing them to elude responsibility for the things they’ve effed up lately (whether those issues are “working as intended” or were actual screw ups, i.e. Oscorp Heroic and server down time). We’ve been pleading for them to talk to us, and their unwillingness to do so just feels like blatant disrespect.
Pretty sure that happens already. IIRC in one of the VentureBeat articles you can see a drop-off on the graph after they had a sale. Anyways, my point was they could achieve the same revenue even if they slashed prices
While community-dev fireside chats would increase goodwill, not sure they’d be of any significance. After the Rag nerf fiasco they said they would try to do better. And we know they read the forums. Yet they keep making the same sort of decisions that continue to cause forum uproar. Plus, you know they will just reply to questions like “How important are veteran players to you” with lip service
anything is better than what we have now. if there is an expectation and a schedule, like bi-weekly, it will be harder to skip. also if it’s part of their routine it will be easier for them to fit it in as well rather than just trying to do better despite all the busyness and work that I’m sure comes across all their desks.
I really don’t think they are going to change directions unless their revenue falls or we find some way of starting a real dialogue. Right now, revenue is increasing so they must think that are focusing on the right areas and that the 141 3* experience is a lower priority consideration vs getting more people to try tournaments and hang around for a while.
I may be wrong but how are we supposed to know if they dont comment on any of this. hence the need for a dialogue.
Let’s not forget that, from D3’s perspective, it’s better for veteran players and dissatisfied players to just quit. I’ve been in this game since October. I have a comfortable amount of HP stockpiled, and every character and ability at least at 1 cover (so far). I probably don’t ever have to spend money again, and since they got a bunch of cash from me and my friends when we expanded to 20 alliance slots, I’m probably a dry revenue stream.
So, if they really want to reach their revenue goals, they probably just need to alienate veterans like myself and upper mid-tier players who are hitting the transition wall but unwilling to pay…the only people left playing will be the new players who don’t know any better and the mid-range players with super-deep pockets, and the company can continue to milk those players for whatever they’re willing to pay.
Oh, wait…were we supposed to be making suggestions or descriptions? I think I made the second one.
I am always wondering if what is going on behind the scenes is that the D3 staff being a bunch of good guys who created the game that we all love felt like they got in over their heads when the game took off, so they hired a consultant company “Palpatine Inc.”
Staff: “Wow, the veteran players seem pissed, we need to help them, they are the loyal customers that got us to the point where we are”
with a wave of his hand and a not so gentle force push
Palpatine: “These are not the customers you are looking for”
with a glazed look…
Staff: “These are not the customers we are looking for”
Staff: “We really should stop destroying any value perceived by our in app purchases, we would like the game to be seen more subscription based, where customers spend a little bit frequently”
angrily Palpatine: “We have throngs of new customers who are either foolish or so frustrated they will pay anything to be able to progress, we don’t need to cater to those simpering marvel nerds who already gave up their cash so willingly, if they really love their precious marvel heroes who come in 3 differently skinned varieties of the same pose. They… will… pay.”
Staff: These are not the customers we are looking for"
