Evolution of the game

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it for example 3* are like the new 2*. 4* are the new 3*. 5* are the new 4*. But clearly as the game has evolved prices have just increased. To me it seems like the price of a phc should be 50units and the fgmc should be 150 units. It seems silly that you pay 300 units for a shot at a 5* when they are the same as a 4*. It just seems as the game evolves prices increase but with the demand of low end champs so low why are we paying premiums for new content instead of devaluing old content with new content. I know nothing will change but I am curious what other ppl think about this

Comments

Bdavis_2017

Don’t pay for crystals, even if the unit price dropped it’s still a bad value compared to saving for a good holiday deal

belli300

I agree it just seems silly I’m sure the first 6* crystal offer available to buy out right will be 30k + in units to obtain it just seems silly to me and on the other side of that units sales haven’t changed since day one but there is just no way that 3100 units is the same value today as it was in 2014 when the game released

Colinwhitworth69

I think simply increasing the odds in the PHC and GMCs would be a good move. Not an astronomical change, but the odds of getting good champs from those right now is infinitesimal.

WiMak

I agree with everything said, including crystals are a waste lol

BRJ2002

I just want the game to run normal. No bugs. Smooth fights. I’m losing and using resources because of program errors.

New_Noob168

You don't like $10 300 unit crystals? I mentioned your subject before and Kabam told me that 5* aren't the new 4*....i think it's bs

Icecold2099

5* are not the new 4*.

Not even close. Until the mass majority of players can get 2 5* champs a week then they are not the new 4*. People that have been playing for over a year don't have 20 5* champs yet. A max 5* champ can clear all content in the game.

Until there is content that can't be easily cleared by a max 5* they are not the new 4*.

In fact they never will be, they will always be 5* crystals. End game players have to understand that new people come into this game all of the time. Catering the entire design of the game to the end gamers would make zero sense.

Somebody thats only been playing for 3 months will still pay 100 units for a phc if their roster is mostly 2* & 3* champs.

"Thats like the people that say 4* champs are useless." Yes, maybe thwy are to you, but there are a million other players in the game they they're not useless to.

It's all relative to where you are in the game...

belli300

Icecold2099 wrote: »

5* are not the new 4*.

Not even close. Until the mass majority of players can get 2 5* champs a week then they are not the new 4*. People that have been playing for over a year don't have 20 5* champs yet. A max 5* champ can clear all content in the game.

Until there is content that can't be easily cleared by a max 5* they are not the new 4*.

In fact they never will be, they will always be 5* crystals. End game players have to understand that new people come into this game all of the time. Catering the entire design of the game to the end gamers would make zero sense.

Somebody thats only been playing for 3 months will still pay 100 units for a phc if their roster is mostly 2* & 3* champs.

"Thats like the people that say 4* champs are useless." Yes, maybe thwy are to you, but there are a million other players in the game they they're not useless to.

It's all relative to where you are in the game...

In the sense that 5* champs are most powerful and most sought after to ru just like 4* were when the game came out yes they are ru new 4* when 4* were top they could clear all game content easily as well so that part of your argument is pretty invalid but I can totally respect your bit about not catering to end game players.

The_Boss9

You have to keep in mind that only a tiny fraction of the player base is at end game right now

ESF

The_Boss9 wrote: »

You have to keep in mind that only a tiny fraction of the player base is at end game right now

Exactly -- I know for the old-schoolers it's not always top of mind, but yeah. A ton of people -- the majority of the player base, I suspect -- isn't all the way through Act 5 through either completion or exploration.

I think the endgame community, at least some of them, kinda forget how tough Act 5 can be if you don't have the right characters. They don't all have to be stacked 5-stars. But if you have bad RNG, it can take a while to get your roster aligned for a deep run on the toughest content in the game

DTMelodicMetal

4*s can still handle all game content except LOL and high tier AW. 5*s won't be close to being "the new 4*s" until we can awaken 5*s of our choice more than once every year.

Timone147

I would just take that I stop getting ridiculous offers for 3 star crystal popping up.

I have almost clicked this 400 unit 3 star Crystal's by accident not expecting it to pop up where I can purchase a gmc or GMC for less with a chance at 4 or 5 star.

At least these types of things being fixed would he a step in the right direction on this front

unknown

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DNA3000

belli300 wrote: »

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it

Because there are, and continue to be, people for whom today is the first day of playing the game. Things in the game aren't designed around three year veterans, they are designed around maintaining a progress ladder that serves both veteran players and new players. Some things change, like the availability of certain things, but some things don't. In particular, the cash offers in the game are mostly targeted: they are targeted at players of different progress levels or different veteran status. Most players seem to think that once *they* have outgrown them, they should be changed. But so long as new players exist in the same situation as they were originally targeted at, those offers will continue to exist.

To put it another way, you see the same offer at the same price over and over, and you assume something's wrong because it is so obvious to you that offer should "evolve." But the monetization guy at Kabam puts the same offer out at the same price over and over, and he sees people continue to buy it over and over, because the people buying it today are not the same people that were buying it yesterday, and that offer obviously continues to target a segment of players that want it and are willing to buy it. From his perspective, demand for the offer hasn't changed, so exactly nothing is wrong with continuing to offer it.

Just because you've outgrown baby food, doesn't mean the supermarket is going to stop selling it, and doesn't mean the supermarket is going to charge less because it is now less valuable to you. It just means that aisle isn't meant for you anymore.

Mitchell35

DNA3000 wrote: »

belli300 wrote: »

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it

Because there are, and continue to be, people for whom today is the first day of playing the game. Things in the game aren't designed around three year veterans, they are designed around maintaining a progress ladder that serves both veteran players and new players. Some things change, like the availability of certain things, but some things don't. In particular, the cash offers in the game are mostly targeted: they are targeted at players of different progress levels or different veteran status. Most players seem to think that once *they* have outgrown them, they should be changed. But so long as new players exist in the same situation as they were originally targeted at, those offers will continue to exist.

To put it another way, you see the same offer at the same price over and over, and you assume something's wrong because it is so obvious to you that offer should "evolve." But the monetization guy at Kabam puts the same offer out at the same price over and over, and he sees people continue to buy it over and over, because the people buying it today are not the same people that were buying it yesterday, and that offer obviously continues to target a segment of players that want it and are willing to buy it. From his perspective, demand for the offer hasn't changed, so exactly nothing is wrong with continuing to offer it.

Just because you've outgrown baby food, doesn't mean the supermarket is going to stop selling it, and doesn't mean the supermarket is going to charge less because it is now less valuable to you. It just means that aisle isn't meant for you anymore.

Dang, well said.

Also, I’m waiting on an Emma Frost story like adaptoid and red skull last month ☺️😉 @DNA3000

GroundedWisdom

DNA3000 wrote: »

belli300 wrote: »

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it

Because there are, and continue to be, people for whom today is the first day of playing the game. Things in the game aren't designed around three year veterans, they are designed around maintaining a progress ladder that serves both veteran players and new players. Some things change, like the availability of certain things, but some things don't. In particular, the cash offers in the game are mostly targeted: they are targeted at players of different progress levels or different veteran status. Most players seem to think that once *they* have outgrown them, they should be changed. But so long as new players exist in the same situation as they were originally targeted at, those offers will continue to exist.

To put it another way, you see the same offer at the same price over and over, and you assume something's wrong because it is so obvious to you that offer should "evolve." But the monetization guy at Kabam puts the same offer out at the same price over and over, and he sees people continue to buy it over and over, because the people buying it today are not the same people that were buying it yesterday, and that offer obviously continues to target a segment of players that want it and are willing to buy it. From his perspective, demand for the offer hasn't changed, so exactly nothing is wrong with continuing to offer it.

Just because you've outgrown baby food, doesn't mean the supermarket is going to stop selling it, and doesn't mean the supermarket is going to charge less because it is now less valuable to you. It just means that aisle isn't meant for you anymore.

I like the Baby Food analogy.

xNig

Just gate progression behind Act clears and price the crystals accordingly. Easy.

Drummer16

DNA3000 wrote: »

belli300 wrote: »

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it

Because there are, and continue to be, people for whom today is the first day of playing the game. Things in the game aren't designed around three year veterans, they are designed around maintaining a progress ladder that serves both veteran players and new players. Some things change, like the availability of certain things, but some things don't. In particular, the cash offers in the game are mostly targeted: they are targeted at players of different progress levels or different veteran status. Most players seem to think that once *they* have outgrown them, they should be changed. But so long as new players exist in the same situation as they were originally targeted at, those offers will continue to exist.

To put it another way, you see the same offer at the same price over and over, and you assume something's wrong because it is so obvious to you that offer should "evolve." But the monetization guy at Kabam puts the same offer out at the same price over and over, and he sees people continue to buy it over and over, because the people buying it today are not the same people that were buying it yesterday, and that offer obviously continues to target a segment of players that want it and are willing to buy it. From his perspective, demand for the offer hasn't changed, so exactly nothing is wrong with continuing to offer it.

Just because you've outgrown baby food, doesn't mean the supermarket is going to stop selling it, and doesn't mean the supermarket is going to charge less because it is now less valuable to you. It just means that aisle isn't meant for you anymore.

This analogy is totally flawed. If I started a new account TODAY and ran the easy event quests and joined an alliance, I would be able to get a 5* in no time. Plus the calendar rewards have greatly changed in what they give out (e.g. full t2a). When I first started it took me like 6 months to get my first t4cc and 5* lol.

The supply of ur so called "baby food" is much much higher and demand remains the same. Therefore, prices should drop. I don't know who buys these 50$ 4* and 20$ offers that kabam puts out. All I know is that since they don't understand their own economy in the game, they will price the first 6* awakening gem at $1000, and at that point this game will just be out of control.

And BTW, I think FGMC ruined the game for top tier players. Having people throw their life savings at a video game slot machine to collect each hero (watch some youtube videos, it's insane) is greatly affecting the balance of the top tiers. It's only pay-to-win now, with less emphasis on being an extremely skilled player. That's very very sad IMO. "Marvel Casino of Champions" should be the new game name.

Bloodshedz

It's everyone's choice to buy or not buy.
You can't hold it against players who don't spend anything (free 2 play) or ppl who spend (whales).
If ppl spending life savings on this game bother you then quit. Their not ruining the game.
Money keeps this game going.
If noone spent a dime....this game would be gone.
Deal with it or move on

DNA3000

Drummer16 wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

belli300 wrote: »

The game has evolved a lot and I beginning to wonder why certain things haven’t evolved with it

Because there are, and continue to be, people for whom today is the first day of playing the game. Things in the game aren't designed around three year veterans, they are designed around maintaining a progress ladder that serves both veteran players and new players. Some things change, like the availability of certain things, but some things don't. In particular, the cash offers in the game are mostly targeted: they are targeted at players of different progress levels or different veteran status. Most players seem to think that once *they* have outgrown them, they should be changed. But so long as new players exist in the same situation as they were originally targeted at, those offers will continue to exist.

To put it another way, you see the same offer at the same price over and over, and you assume something's wrong because it is so obvious to you that offer should "evolve." But the monetization guy at Kabam puts the same offer out at the same price over and over, and he sees people continue to buy it over and over, because the people buying it today are not the same people that were buying it yesterday, and that offer obviously continues to target a segment of players that want it and are willing to buy it. From his perspective, demand for the offer hasn't changed, so exactly nothing is wrong with continuing to offer it.

Just because you've outgrown baby food, doesn't mean the supermarket is going to stop selling it, and doesn't mean the supermarket is going to charge less because it is now less valuable to you. It just means that aisle isn't meant for you anymore.

This analogy is totally flawed. If I started a new account TODAY and ran the easy event quests and joined an alliance, I would be able to get a 5* in no time. Plus the calendar rewards have greatly changed in what they give out (e.g. full t2a). When I first started it took me like 6 months to get my first t4cc and 5* lol.

The supply of ur so called "baby food" is much much higher and demand remains the same. Therefore, prices should drop. I don't know who buys these 50$ 4* and 20$ offers that kabam puts out. All I know is that since they don't understand their own economy in the game, they will price the first 6* awakening gem at $1000, and at that point this game will just be out of control.

I think you're confused about both how game economies work and how economies in general work. If your supply and demand ideas were true, and the ability for players to earn in-game rewards was acting as competitive supply, then the direct result would be players spending far less money on the cash offers. That doesn't seem to be true, and if it were true the monetization people would change them, as that is literally their job. The fact that they don't is a priori proof that they are still profitable at comparable conversion rates as before, or close enough to not warrant changes, and your conjecture about how the game economy works is false.

belli300

Wow lots of constructive thought process here!

belli300

I tend to agree that fgmc have not ruined the top tiers but definitely skewed them a lot. The one thing I will say is people can buy all the fgmc that they want to but even if they pulled all the new champs they can only ru a couple of them to a relative level for current end game content.

Marri

Icecold2099 wrote: »

5* are not the new 4*.

Not even close. Until the mass majority of players can get 2 5* champs a week then they are not the new 4*. People that have been playing for over a year don't have 20 5* champs yet. A max 5* champ can clear all content in the game.

Until there is content that can't be easily cleared by a max 5* they are not the new 4*.

In fact they never will be, they will always be 5* crystals. End game players have to understand that new people come into this game all of the time. Catering the entire design of the game to the end gamers would make zero sense.

Somebody thats only been playing for 3 months will still pay 100 units for a phc if their roster is mostly 2* & 3* champs.

"Thats like the people that say 4* champs are useless." Yes, maybe thwy are to you, but there are a million other players in the game they they're not useless to.

It's all relative to where you are in the game...

Why 5* are the new 4* is because 5* are as rare now as 4* were around version 10. So in that sense it might be true, but considering how long ago that is I'd say this is a non-argument.

5* are relative to A5 what 4* were to A4. A4 was possible with the right maxed 3* in the hands of a good player, but R4 4* made it achievable to the majority of players (I played 80% of A4 with 3* back in the day). Similarly, the right maxed 4* in the right hands go a long way in A5, but the masses won't be able to finish A5 without R4 5*. So the argument here would be 'relative to the highest quest content'. Same difference between old Master EQ (before unc existed) vs current Uncollected EQ.

4* are not completely useless, just like 3* weren't completely useless when A4 was main event. But beyond 5.2 and in some Uncollected quests you really want a few R4 5*...

DNA3000

Marri wrote: »

4* are not completely useless, just like 3* weren't completely useless when A4 was main event. But beyond 5.2 and in some Uncollected quests you really want a few R4 5*...

What you want and what you can actually have are two different things. A player playing in an active alliance will have a general need for at least five questing champs, three AQ attack champs, three AW attack champs, and five AW defense champs. It is possible for all of them to be 5* champs, but there's two problems there for most players. First of all, even with the much higher availability of 5* champs, it is still true that for the overwhelming majority of players, at least 90% if not more, their 4* roster is far more diverse and strong than their 5* roster, and it is extremely unlikely they have a full complement of 5* champs appropriate for all those positions.

A related but more important problem is that virtually no player in the game has enough T2 alpha cats to arbitrarily rank up an unlimited number of 5* champs. Even just the sixteen slots above is almost impossible for all but the highest level players. So even players that have sixteen 5* champs that they feel are perfect for questing, AQ, and AW requirements aren't likely to be able to rank more than a few to R4 or R5. That means they now have to decide whether to wait for longer periods of time to rank up 5* champs to R3 to eventually get them to R4 or rank up 4* champs to 5/50 and get immediate use out of them. And while a 3/45 might, in general, be at least a little stronger than a 5/50, the 5/50 is more likely to be awakened and at a far higher sig level, or be much easier to awaken and take to a high sig level. This is not a trivial decision to make in all cases.

In an ideal world we would leave 4* champs behind for 4/55 and 5/65 champs. But in that ideal world we would all be using 2/35 6* champs for everything. That's impossible of course, but it is essentially equally impossible for most players to do that with 4/55s and 5/65 also. They still have to make choices between 4* and 5* rank ups, and while the choice leans toward 5*, it isn't a strong lean in many cases. In that respect, 4* champions are still relevant to player choices in a way that 3* champions never really were in the game to the same degree.

ESF

@DNA3000 : Perfect explanation. I understand why people want to not invest resources in 4* haphazardly, but I say this all the time: You can't run the race without horses. If you've got an awakened 4-star Archangel and you can take that to 5/50, you can't just sit there and say "no, I'm not doing that because I'm all in on 5-stars, even though I don't have an Archangel as a 5-star."

unknown

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DNA3000

Slay_Monster wrote: »

Lively debate and I can see both sides of the argument.

However I will throw this into the ring. In the retail world there is a marketing ploy that most retailers have adopted and it is the 2 for 1 offer. A bag of rice selling at $5 isn't perceived as being great value. But once it is offered at 2 for 1, suddenly the consumer does see value in it and the consumer will purchase that offer, regardless of perceived brand value. The consumer will switch brands for that better value offer. Sure the supplier makes less GP initially, but as demand increases the cost of production reduces and so not only does the retailer benefit but so too does the supplier. And due to the product being sold at a better value, the consumer actually buys more. In MCOC terms the cost of production is zero, so all they would be doing is increasing sales without affecting the bottom line.

Another effective retail ploy are members programs or loyalty cards. These programs or cards ensure the consumers repeat business. The consumer does have the choice between retailers however if they can see better value via a loyalty program they will inevitably shop with that retailer. Uncollected is similar in nature to a loyalty program and as such it should be providing better value for the player. But apart from the Uncollected Arena crystals (which don't seem to deliver rewards as good as the standard Arena crystal per battlechip value) and GMC's (which again don't hold much value to the Uncollected in my opinion) there is very little reward. I am merely suggesting discounted rates across the board for the Uncollected portion of the community. Sure membership comes at a cost but the rewards are there.

Both of these suggestions are based around one thing and one thing only. Customer satisfaction. If the community sees better value, the community will spend more. Except for those scummy FTP's.......thats a joke guys lol

This is a bit of a (longer than I thought) tangent, but I think most if not all people who comment on the question of the value of cash offers, from the forums to the reddit to the Youtubers, seem to be completely unaware of the fact (and I use the word explicitly) that the goal of F2P monetization is *not* to provide the best possible value. There are actually two opposing priorities for F2P monetization, and one of them is to provide the *worst* possible value. What's more, this is actually a good thing.

Prior to microtransactions and monetized content, online games could only reward players for in-game effort. That doesn't mean such games were necessarily perfectly fair, but in general the goal was to reward gameplay effort and skill with in-game rewards commensurate to that skill (as an oversimplification: even in such games there were things like login/calendar rewards which had a different purpose). Monetization systems and microtransactions created a new opportunity to generate revenue, but the question became: how to make them "fair?" For players already accustomed to the notion that rewards should only come from game achievements, the idea that you could buy your way to the same things it took players dozens or hundreds of hours of effort to obtain seemed extremely bad. This was a complex thing to balance: give too little value and no one would buy them, but give too much value and the game would be seen as "pay to win" where players could simply spend their way past achievements, which devalued in-game achievements, which could cause many players to decide that in-game effort was no longer worth performing, which decreased so-called "engagement" which ultimately cost you players.

But this also created opportunities to make games that were structured to get *all* of their revenue from microtransactions, the so-called "free to play" games. The games wouldn't charge anything to play them, and would instead try to convince some players to buy things in the game to generate revenue. The problem was subtly different from the old-school monetization problem, but had similar aspects. You want - even need - to attract players to play the game, and initially they all get to play for free. You need some players to pay for things, or you can't make money. But if you give too much value to the players who pay, you'll get a reputation for being "pay to win" and you won't be able to attract new players, who ultimately become the pool of people who can be converted to paying customers.

A successful F2P game must appear attractive to players who want to initially play for free. It must be possible to accomplish a lot, if not almost everything, without paying. And the perception must be that players who do pay do not have such an overwhelming advantage over them that it makes it feel pointless to put effort into trying to play for free. To do this, the monetization system must find the *lowest* value possible for its cash offers that is still *enticing enough* to attract enough buyers to generate sufficient revenue. This is done primarily through targeting. Offers are explicitly targeted at specific groups of players that have very specific needs at that moment. The offers can then provide extremely targeted value that won't likely appear to be worth it to most players, but will situationally be seen as valuable enough to those targeted players that some will go for it.

The net result is that players tend not to buy "value" but rather to "scratch an itch" that is often temporary. They wouldn't ordinarily spend money to get X, but since X is something they need right at that moment it is temporarily worth more to them, and they are really spending cash not for a thing, but to save the time it otherwise takes to get that thing. In-game things might have no value, but everyone's time is worth a lot more to them. The way I tend to describe this concept is to say that F2P games tax impatience.

There are good monetization systems and horrible, exploitive ones, given this mindset. But the one thing that *always* generates bad monetization systems is ironically the ones most people think are good ones: the ones that offer very high value for cash. By definition, those systems automatically destroy the notion that free to play is viable, and that tends to erode your ability to attract new free to play players. And without new free to play players, there is no pool of people you can try to convert to paying customers.

It is actually not easy to get this right, and for all the things I think Kabam gets wrong, it generally get this right enough to work. Free to play is very viable in MCOC, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend MCOC to a person who wanted to play completely for free, if they were someone I felt had the patience to play for free. Conversely, there is a lot to spend money on, most of which have poor value, but if you want to throw money at a game, you can do that as well and you will get *something* for that money if you spend it carefully and strategically. It is not perfect, and occasionally it is head-scratchingly weird, but it is surprising how few F2P games get even this close.

One last thing. Most of the time when someone is complaining about the low value of an offer, I'm tempted to explain this. But most of the time I don't for this reason: those complaints are actually necessary. If I was the monetization person at Kabam, I would *want* people complaining about those offers. Remember: if I was the monetization dude my goal is to make offers that most people think are so bad that almost no one will buy them, and thus those people think those offers are not actually helping anyone get too far ahead of them. Meanwhile, I want the targeted audience for those offers who actually want to buy them and willing to spend money on them to think that they are seeing a diamond in the rough, that they see value in that most people don't, which will only validate their decision to buy them. I know that's not universally true, but it doesn't have to be. In a game with a million players, it only has to be statistically true. And as the monetization dude, I'd be the only person in the world that gets to see those statistics.

Every time someone complains about the value of an offer, they are actually helping to sell them in a weird sort of way. They just don't know that, because they probably don't believe a single word of this post. I find this to be one of the most ironic things about how monetization currently works in the games industry.

unknown

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unknown

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DNA3000

Slay_Monster wrote: »

I tip my hat to you DNA. That is the most articulated response to the cries for better value in the game. I simply cannot argue with that at all. Tried to throw retail concepts into the debate but as you've explained the retail world and online gaming world are further apart than I initially thought. Need to cut n paste your explanation and post in any new threads regarding better value in the game. Thank you.

There is a retail model that comes kind of close to this: the semiconductor industry. It can cost billions of dollars to create the manufacturing facilities to make something like a computer CPU. But it can literally cost a couple bucks to actually make one CPU when that factory is running (because they make hundreds or thousands at a time and the per-hour cost to run the factory is small compared to the costs of building it). Companies like Intel price their chips in such a way that they "tax impatience" in an analogous way. They initially charge a lot for those chips, targeting the people willing to pay a lot to get it first. Then the price drops in stages as they target successive groups of people willing to pay less and wait longer.

Overlayed on this are competitive pressures, but even when there was no effective competition (there have been periods when Intel practically owned the desktop microprocessor space) this same pricing strategy was followed. They initially priced as high as they could possibly get away with (which is just another way of saying they were trying to deliver the lowest possible value for the cash) and then priced lower (and conversely delivered more value) to people increasingly willing to wait for better value.

Online games like MCOC have huge fixed costs and relatively low incremental costs (they have to pay for development and operation of the game, but the per player costs are relatively low and the per unit costs of the things they sell are practically zero). Most retail doesn't look like that: the unit costs are the important thing and the fixed costs of operation are just an adjustment on top. But when retail does look like that, it can incorporate ideas that look at least somewhat similar to how the online games industry works.