On Retroactive Rewards

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
21

Looking at this, I lost 13 5* covers due to the switchover, assuming previously-obtained 5* covers were not intended to be retroactively awarded via shards (which I’m OK with).
I have effectively lost 1 Black Bolt cover because I was not retroactively awarded the Level 356/358 shards for my Level 359 Medusa. I lost Level 300 champ reward covers for: Cable, Professor X, Archangel, and Hulk. I lost Level 320 + 300 champ reward covers for: Storm, Rescue, Gambit, and Iceman.

I am quite upset at this change.

22

Sorry but this IS a customer service issue. I feel like turn usual gaslighting as already begun and while I didn’t place a ticket, am sorely tempted now just because you’re downplaying it all as a feedback issue.

23

Are vets morally superior to newer players? Absolutely not.

But that is not the issue here. The issue what level of reward should demi/d3 offer for those players that do support the game via time and/or money for an extended period?

One might argue that ‘vets have already received all they should.’ or one might argue that extra covers for 5s would be appropriate. But personally, i would suggest that losing out on ~4x 5 covers is not a good answer to the question (this applies to those with level 360+ 4* champs that got new feeders today, like Prof X or IMHB. Those with level 275 IMHB’s today can get as many as 6x 5* Rescue feeder covers whenever they do level up their champ. Those with a high level IMHB would need to build a new champ to get more than 2x Rescue feeder covers.)

24

Retroactive rewards for feeders have been around a long time. Rolling out a bunch of them at the same time doesn’t make them more or less fair or unfair than they’ve been since they were introduced.

25

So you don’t think someone with a level 370 4* character (who has likely invested more time and money in the game) deserves more retrospective rewards than someone like me with a level 300 4* character?

26

Bc it means it isn’t the same for all players. If one is upset about getting 2 covers instead of 6, they should equally be upset if some get double rewards and others not.

27

The vets earned the LTs the received for those levels. It is in fact, unfair to the lower rosters in that higher rosters essentially net two good rewards for a single level. And LT, and later a 5* cover. Although it has always been this way, that does not necessarily it is not biased. To say you EARNED double dipping rewards just because you leveled a 4* quicker than someone else…it’s bad form.

28

Here is the problem between the newer players and the vets:

I would never recommend this game to a new player. The climb seems insurmountable with dilution. So the devs are trying to make it to where they can make it easier to not only climb the ladder quickly, but give them metrics (shards) to gauge their progress. They are trying to close the gap to be competitive as soon as possible.

As a vet, we are ahead of the curve, but we are seeing the goalposts be moved in front of us to stretch out how long it will take for us to get to “the end”. By updating the rewards to stretch this out, some vets have not been given the equivalent of what they should have been.

This is not an us vs them. It just needs to be equal across the board.

29

I would split the difference. I suspect that the CS issues caused by feedback was at least part of the reason that we got relatively swift feedback (~6 hours). So I don’t think people were wrong to use that avenue to provide feedback prior to this announcement. But now that d3 has explicitly asked us not continue doing so, it seems reasonable to hold off for the time being (if we get not further feedback in the next couple of weeks, however, I may start to feel differently).

30

The same for everyone isn’t always fair. What we’re talking here is a reward proportional to the amount of time and money a given player has spent on the game. Y’know, the same principle as how someone who works 40 hours a week makes more money than someone who works the same job for 30 hours a week.

31

While I appreciate them taking a look into it, I’m hoping they do it quickly. Letting drag out feels like a bad idea.

32

Of course it isn’t the same for all players. Players that invested more covers into a character should get more retroactive rewards than those that didn’t. Do you complain that it’s “not fair” that you make less money for working 5 hours a week than the people who work 40 hours a week?? Do you not see a correlation between how far a player has progressed into the game and how much they then earn from said progress?

33

Yes, the vets already earned a token at those levels. But that token is not always a 5 star.

Without the vets, this game would probably not have lasted this long. We are invested in our rosters in both time and money.

I remember the time when all players got a potential windfall of iso depending on their rosters. I imagine many of us were looking for something at least fair to vets like that time was. IMO, a company should value their current customers at least as much as their newer customers. Especially since the current, long-standing customers have already shown an interest and are more likely to have built up a habit of spending.

The comment that it is just free stuff goes in both directions. It really doesn’t cost anything to give out in-game prizes. But it does build rapport and loyalty.

34

This is a very charitable interpretation of the BH > shards transition.

35

I understand the 5* rewards are getting a lot of play, but as a mid level player, does this post suggest there won’t be any further discussion on the secondary 4* shards found in most of the 3s? Picking up 75+85+95+105 4 shards because that’s where your 3* champ was this morning is frustrating as if I knew this would’ve happened earlier, I would’ve been save covers and tokens until this all went down.

36

I appreciate you and your team taking this seriously. Thank you.

I think one of the biggest issues was the update for how the retroactive rewards would work. It came very late. By looking at timestamps, the update was made roughly 9 hours before the rewards went live.

That’s not a lot of time to absorb that sort of information.

Secondly the way the update was written was supremely confusing. As others have mentioned, longtime players in the forums, on Line, and elsewhere had varying interpretations of what was posted. If there’s three or four interpretations of varying degrees of correctness concerning how the rewards will work based on what was written, you need to go back to the drawing board and draft up a more clear explanation. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.

I myself suggested that there should have been rewards breakdowns given for max champ characters for each scenario: a 4* that’s currently a feeder, a 4* that’s becoming a feeder, a 3* that’s gaining a secondary 4* feeder, a 3* that still only feeds one 4*, and 2*s.

In hindsight, this wouldn’t have been overly informative because a 4* that was already a feeder at 370 produced zero shards, while some at lower levels did provide some shards. However, even that example would have been more clearly understood and helped to manage expectations than the one we received.

Another major issue was the moving of goalposts in terms of the way retroactive rewards work now versus how they worked before.

Under the old system, a 370 4* PX would have rewarded 6 fixed 5* PX covers (two of each color). Today it rewarded 1 blue cover and 500 shards, enough for one cover of choice. That’s a net loss of 4 covers, which seems a steep price to pay for colorless covers, especially when we also factor in the reduction in CP/HP/ISO from all champ rewards across all tiers.

Or take another hypothetical scenario. Say a player has 4* PX at Level 325. Their 5* PX is 5/5/2 with no saved covers.

Under the old system, they would have champed 5* PX to Level 452. Today, their 5* PX would still be 5/5/2 with one saved cover and 200 shards. On top of that, they won’t be able to finish 5* PX until 4* PX hits Level 340, a full 20 levels more than under the old system (and 5* PX would only be 451, while under the old system PX would be 453 with a Level 340 4* PX).

This player would actually be actively hurt by this update! That’s messed up. No two ways about it.

37

Yes.

Hey, is dogface your IGN too?

38

Biggest issue I find with the retroactive rewards stands with the new feeders. Let’s say I got a Cyclops who’s level 360, under old rules I would have gotten 6 covers. Now I get 1 cover and a bunch of shards, excuse me?

I just cannot go back in time and re-champ Cyclops like that, it takes literally years to get them to that level (and it keeps getting worse). How am I supposed to acquire those shards now? Well… I cannot and this all feels like a pile of tinykitty.

Ive got some Classic 5*'s who are very poorly covered, I was pretty happy finally they’d get a feeder, maybe get me a little bit of progress. Now its almost the same as before, no way Im ever champing them because of some new system that for some reason doesnt follow a pattern you established before.

39

The problem with that analogy is that when all of that iso was handed out, it was for retroactive Shield rank. If your amount of play put you at rank 60 that day, you earned all of the ISO that you should have earned for every rank up to rank 60. But the new players start from rank 1. After much playing, when they reach rank 60 they will have received the same amount of ISO rewards that you earned on your insta-rank 60 day.

Retroactive level rewards is not the same cup of Kool-Aid. When a feeder gets introduced, people with a large 4* Iceman will have already earned an LT for every tenth level. Then you expect additionally the retroactive 5* cover. Whereas a newer player will not receive an LT and a 5* cover when they receive that rank.

It’s funny how much the Unfair label gets tossed around now that it’s us on the short end. But when we were double dipping those rewards while the newer players could not, there was no mention of it being unfair in our favor.

40

I champed 3* dupes for the upcoming rewards when I should have waited. Previous feeders always gave retroactive rewards. My entire alliance interpreted it to do the same as previous rewards which gave out all rewards earned.