[POLL]Free Roster Slots. Cool or Not?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
21

All Roster Spots being free would make a lot of things that are cool about MPQ non-existent.

A couple of things I would suggest; giving away a Roster Slot once a month in Daily Rewards (or just make it something that has a chance to drop in random prizes), Roster Spot tokens (as mentioned earlier in this thread) that can be given away in different events periodically, bundles of Roster Slots like at the start of your journey (this would encourage impatient/desperate people to buy HP, but it also feels satisfying to see those three free slots), and of course reducing the actual cost of Roster Slots.

If it were up to me to manage the way the price increase worked for Roster Slots, it would look something like this (note: incline in price is figurative, not solid numbers or percentiles);

#1-#5; Free.
#6; 50 Hero Points.
#7-#10; 100 Hero Point bundle.
#11; 75 Hero Points.
#12-#14; 100 Hero Point bundle.
#14; 75 Hero Points.
#15-#17; 200 Hero Point bundle.
#18; 100 Hero Points.
#19-#21; 250 Hero Point bundle.
#22+; Here is where I feel like they should jump in price a bit. It’s hard to defend the need for more than 20 Roster Slots to transition. If you want to be a collector, you should have to pay a bit of a premium. Like most people, though, I think there should be a cap. I feel like 500 Hero Points is acceptable, but 300 Hero Points is much more fair, since you can get that usually between a PvE and a PvP. Bundles of three would be something like 1250 Hero Points is they cost 500 a piece or 750 Hero Points if they cost 300 Hero Points, like I proposed.

Or something like this;

#1-#5; Free.
#6; 25 Hero Points.
#7; 25 Hero Points.
#8-#10; 75 Hero Point bundle.
#11; 50 Hero Points.
#12; 50 Hero Points.
#13-#15; 100 Hero Points.
#16; 75 Hero Points.
#17; 75 Hero Points.
#18-#20; 175 Hero Points.
#21+; Like I said above, this is where I’d say scaling would start kicking in. 125 Hero Points and 150 Hero Points for #21 and #22, respectively, #23-#25 would be something like 350 Hero Points, #26 would be something like 200 Hero Points with #27 being 250 Hero Points and #27-#30 would be something like 500 Hero Points, from here singles would be 300 Hero Points and bundles of three would be 750 Hero Points.

Both models are forgiving to new player and players trying to get through their transition. Both models offer fair and attainable collectors status. Both models encourage people to spend Hero Points on slots in bulk. Even at the end of the second model’s incline 5 slots would cost 1350 Hero Points. I feel like that’s chunky enough to persuade enough people to drop 20$ here and there to get those slots for the new few events, but it’s also low enough that a player that players semi-frequently can attain them without spending any money.

22

I think 1 of each character should be free and higher cost if you want a double of someone like hood Xforce or sentry.

23

Um.. Shielding and Shield hopping are ALREADY the norm? All free roster slots does is help deal with the oncoming tidal wave of new characters. I’d be for it, and wouldn’t even care if I got a refund.

24

The whole issue of roster slot pricing could be made moot if essential nodes in PvE allowed us to use a single covered loan character. After you have 20 or 30 characters that you really enjoy using, be it for personal preferences or some really work together you only reàlly need each character released to be competitive in PvE so as to cover any eventual essential nodes.

That being said i will vote make them free because I am a free player and who doesn’t want free stuff?

25

The spots should be reduced to free or just a couple hundred points, but you should only be allowed one of each chr on your roster. We can have the heavy hitters with an unlimited supply of the top chrs. That would destroy the game. But I’m about to pay 800 for my next slot and with chrs coming out at this rate this is what will push me away from the game. It’s going to cost me 10 bucks a chr slot soon. Nuts to that.

26

Although its a great idea, I would want my HP back icon_e_sad.gif
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I wouldn’t mind paying 400-500 for slots since I usually get about 50 or 100 HP per event.

27

Even if they leave the costs as-is, just throw a freebie out once in a great while. Daily reward, super-small chance from Heroic or LR tokens, prize for 4th place alliance finish in pvp, etc.

28

Couple points.

I feel the cover purchases is probably skewed on the pie chart from what it is now. When did they change the guaranteed featured character? I’m pretty sure it was after april 2014 so alot of people were actively using it to build their characters.

2nd roster spots need to have a cost because it is one of the reliable sources of income for d3.

3rd I would like to see roster spots capped as much of the forum does. The $5 hp purchase gets you 600 hp. Either 500 or 600 would be fine by me. Then if you want a duplicate of a character make it cost the same for a 1* double for a 2* three tumes for a 3* and four times for a 4*.
so 1*=500hp (600)
2*= 1000hp (1200)
3*=1500hp (1800)
4*=2000hp (2400)

So whales still get to be whales but those of us that just want to compete and have a complete roster can do so at a reasonable price. And should be easy to code because you have to hit the little star to start a new duplicate.

It’s a 2way street. Asking the devs to be reasonable means we should be equally reasonable.

29

Another biased poll with no reasonable disagreeing answer.

30

It’s not rocket science, just keep the current structure but cap it at 500 hp. That gives 40 slots which is enough to remain competitive whilst juggling covers and is not prohibitive for those who “gotta catch em all”.

31

Would make it easier for f2p ppl to keep up with new characters

32

If D3 goes with the cap idea, then, IMO, the best way would be slots 1 - 50 cap at 500Hp. Slots 51 - 100 cap at 750Hp. Slots 101 - 125 cap 1,000Hp. Slots 126 - 150 caps at 1,500Hp. And all slots from 151 and up cap at 2,000Hp. (not these figures of course, just used these as an example, I don’t know what the price can be to be low enough to make people happy and still make the company money).

But honestly, I think it would be a huge mistake. Capping roster prices will only do more harm than good. Here are a few reasons why:…

1). The game has to make money somehow. You can not expect the devs to spend all day, 5 days a week, making this game and then give it away free. This is their job, how they pay their bills and feed their families.

2). If roster slots were all capped at 500 Hp, then the whales would all have 5 or 10 maxed Xforce, Big Thor, Hulk, Sentry, Hood, Black Panther, Patch, Steve Rogers, and Thorette,(coming soon). I know I would have at least 5 of all the heavy hitters instead the 2 of each I have now. So if the slot price cap is implemented, then there needs to be an increase in the cap price with the more slots you get. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a price cap in the first place. icon_e_confused.gif

3). IMHO, capping is the wrong way to go.(see #2). My idea has been for a while now to just offer “free roster slot” token as the final progression award or something in events offering new characters. But only in events that offer new characters. Everything else will stay the same.

4). If we take away D3s income from roster slots, we won’t need them anymore. Reason being that if MPQ has no income, then D3/Demiurge can’t pay the licensing fee for all the characters. Which means No More Characters! icon_e_surprised.gif
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People keep saying they want cheaper slots to get the new characters, but don’t realize that those slots are part of what pays for the next new character.

TL;DR… this whole thing needs to be handled very delicately.

edited for spelling/grammar

33

But for most players, that’s when they’d be spending HP on slots - so you’re kind of countering your own ‘the devs need to make money, this is their job’ argument. Most players are not going to be going out of their way to get multiple covers of everyone. The only time I ever need to think about HP is when a new character comes out. Free slots with new characters + HP earnings from events = I’d never have to buy HP again.

I think giving out free slots is a far worse concept financially than just capping costs. At least with capped costs, there is still a cost involved, which potentially means HP purchasing.

34

If they give out Roster Slots for free, it would have to be “special”. It couldn’t be on a regular basis. Something like 1:3 new character release,if they were hard to attain, if not a fair bit less often.

35

Not exactly sure where to post this, but this topic seems to cover the same subject.
As a new player i am not yet familiar with how these developers work, but I ran into the same problem described here.
I have 7/7 heroes, 2 in the reward section (6 days left), 16 unopened tokens (14 common, 2 rare). So now i am basically stuck, since i am afraid to open the tokens, because if i get an upgrade on a hero i do not have yet, i cant do anything with it. But at the same time without openeing those tokens, i cant level up my heroes and i cant progress in the game >.<

So i was just wondering, is it normal for admins to regularly reply here with their opinion? Or is it going to take weeks before they voice their opinion? Because if its the second, I ll have to sell more heroes icon_e_sad.gif
Already sold two, but selling a hero, thats like stabbing someone in the heart. Telling the hero he is not good enough to fight for me. I rather do not to do that.

Normally i would just accept it as game mechanic and move on. But regarding the amount of topics in the forum about this (also see the first few pages of the Q&A of december) it is obvious that they have to change it somehow.

36

Admin’s do not regularly reply to threads, no. They do, however, read the boards, so threads like this one let them know our feelings on issues players face.

If you have 7 roster slots maybe consider buying some imcoin.png
and going for a quick expansion. You can add 3-4 slots for like 5 bucks, and then you can open all the tokens without fear of losing someone.

Also, see the Tips forum for general guidelines on who to keep, who you can sell, and how to progress. Hint: Sell all the Yelena covers.

37

To #1 #2 and #4 - free roster slots would encourage cover and token sales. You think big spenders would go up to 5 copies of certain heroes? Each fully leveled hero is like $300 or more in D3s pocket in cover sales and ISO sales. Also to #4, per the poll recently, we don’t actually WANT more new characters. It’s hard enough to 13 cover a 3* in transition as it is, and the pool keeps getting deeper and deeper.

For #3, this is a decent idea, similar to another one posted earlier about a free slot per new character (although I think they said every other character). I agree it needs to be handled delicately, but it does need to be handled. The number of characters in this game is approaching critical levels.

I think there should be a free roster, with enough slots to put one of every hero on it, and an “expanded roster” where you can buy slots for duplicate heroes. You want to recruit a second Sentry to save on Health Pack purcases? That will be 1,000 spideycoin.png
please. Oh you want Yelena actually on your roster, sure, you can go ahead and have that one for free. Right now these two things cost the same, and are absolutely not the same value.

38

thanks for the reply.
I already sold yelena and spiderman bagman, next i can sell hawkeye. But after i sold him, i really have nothing left to sell since the others are all cool icon_e_smile.gif

39

If you think you can buy roster slots, do it now. As your roster grows it gets progressively more expensive to open each slot.

40

Keep in mind that all your HP should go to roster slots. Never, ever buy anything else with HP. If you are F2P, HP = roster slots only.