And if you think that shop is tailored towards F2P, you must have about a 10-year plan for obtaining one 4 star character.
Well its a good motivating plan and hopefully never look back on it. Just move forward and unlock the character the regular way.
Speaking of unlocking, I heard they changed the drop rate to 10% or less. I can confirm it because I only got 2 ki ren shards after using 15 or so tickets. I'm stuck at 75/80.
Possibly. I got 10 Barriss Shards out of 23 sim rolls when things refreshed tonight, and got my last 12 Rey shards from 32 battles on hard mode (The Barris drops were high; my long term drop rate sits around 30-35% for shards on both Cantina and Hard modes).
It's not that I say no to extra shards of relevant toons, even if the rate is low. It slowly adds up. But I just don't feel treated right, getting offered my own toons back at me. It's insulting.
There will be a shop exclusive toon released later this month. The first of many I'm sure.
The issue with this toon is he will be almost completely worthless.
If he starts out at 4*, then you need 80 shards to activate him. If he shows up everyday, that's 40 days before you can even activate him.
For most people, a toon under 6* is not usable for arena. To get him to 6* you'll almost double what it takes to activate him.
So in 113 days you can get him to 6*. I'm sure before then, new toons will be introduced that will have better skills than the shard shop only toon, and make him worthless
QFT.
That said, for some reason EA and CG doesn't seem to like encouraging people to spend.
I am kind of glad I gave up spending on this game.
I really do hope EA_Jesse starts to gather and act on feedback from players spending on the game. I'm sure they would have noticed a dip in their revenue stream by now, from all the frustrated players who used to pay for the game.
I'm not complaining, I'm happy with where the game is going, but I won't be touching the shard shop in its current form.
An exchange rate of 10 to 1 is just too poor to be able to get a worthwhile return, even more so when it's random luck who and when you can spend the currency on.
I'm actually a bit miffed that shard shop automatically converted by existing surplus shards, because I'm convinced this will be a barely used feature until the exchange rate is improved, so I'd rather have kept my shards until then.
I have to agree with the original post. If the intent is to make someone who already dropped money into this game spend more money, the shard shop as introduced fails to do that. This player is discouraged from buying more chromium packs as he will never be able to use the shards he already has.
There are plenty ways to fix this (biting my tongue to avoid another post going on a tangent) so hopefully this feature will get tweaked.
Had an opportunity to speak with a dev last night... he assured our group that the shard shop would be adjusted throughout the upcoming weeks.
It does, however, go without saying that they won't make it were you can spend large chunks. They would like some pacing...
This shop is not for heavy donators that have all the characters twice.
Who do you it actually caters for then? No one else has enough currency to purchase the main item(s) like the exclusive hero and the heroes under 7* that finally show.
Had an opportunity to speak with a dev last night... he assured our group that the shard shop would be adjusted throughout the upcoming weeks.
It does, however, go without saying that they won't make it were you can spend large chunks. They would like some pacing...
Interesting. Did you asked them how it was going to be adjusted?
I normally don't call people out because I'm not f2p by any means, but, your whale tears are salty and delicious. You own more than most players, are seeing the same shipments on the same rotation they are, and are whining on day 1, and with the hyperbole to say the shard shop is useless. You know what's useless? Excess 7* shards. That is the perfect example of useless. That and this troll thread.
Had an opportunity to speak with a dev last night... he assured our group that the shard shop would be adjusted throughout the upcoming weeks.
It does, however, go without saying that they won't make it were you can spend large chunks. They would like some pacing...
Interesting. Did you asked them how it was going to be adjusted?
There was little to no further information from the developer outside of saying that there could be room for improvement. Was said that "it will be monitored"...
Honestly, I am not sure how the shard shop in its current form benefits anyone:
1) This thread and others like it explain well why it doesn't help whales - it simply offers them characters they already have at 10:1 ratio...and slow rate of exchange. Horrible for them, definitely.
2) P2P "dolphins" - maybe a little, as they likely have several 7* characters and possibly some extra shards in each. But it would seem they too would run into similar problems to the whales - many of the characters in the shard shop they already have or are simply lousy toons (especially when the options are only 6 toons and 2 shards per day). But maybe for a small handful it might help them "finish up" a few hard-to-get shards - but good Lord, 10:1?
3) F2P has obviously no interest in this. They can even barely get their toons to 7* and gear them to keep up with the ever-increasing meta in Arena and still complete GW on a regular basis, let alone have extra shards. Useless to F2P.
At best, this might slightly be liked by a handful of dolphins as far as I can tell. But even then, the 10:1 ratio is so horrible, it's almost better to simply wait until something that actually has value comes along.
To be honest, this is the only part of the update I was fairly disappointed in. Everything else is good - but this seems like a big waste of everyone's time (devs and players) - as it really suits no purpose for almost anyone.
That said, all of the above is predicated on the Shard Shop remaining as is. Maybe if they make some major changes to its ratio, or refresh or characters offered or all of the above, it might be useful. At least they put it off to the side so you don't have to scroll past useless real estate in the home screen.
In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie
In game guild: TNR Uprising I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
@KoolKent What shards have you "bought" through the shop?
In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie
In game guild: TNR Uprising I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
Although I suppose it's my fault for thinking you weren't going to transform my extra shards into completely useless currency, that I would never really see any use out of.
So when do you announce you're adding an additional star? 2 weeks?
Before someone calls me a whiner, explain the logic of converting my excess 7* shards to currency... and then offering to sell me those same shards at a 10:1 ratio.
Honest question for the whales and possibly the dolphins. Did you expect to just roll into the shard shop and just buy full toons immediately? What rate did you expect a profit based game to give you?
All I hear is complaints. What was your hope? I get you have a ton of shards. You spent money to have these toons faster. You have got to dominate GW and arena. You have the cool toons. That was the benefit to spending early. Nothing is "owed" to you.
I'm truly not being ugly about this, I'm curious for some well thought out answers.
Honest question for the whales and possibly the dolphins. Did you expect to just roll into the shard shop and just buy full toons immediately? What rate did you expect a profit based game to give you?
All I hear is complaints. What was your hope? I get you have a ton of shards. You spent money to have these toons faster. You have got to dominate GW and arena. You have the cool toons. That was the benefit to spending early. Nothing is "owed" to you.
I'm truly not being ugly about this, I'm curious for some well thought out answers.
A few people invested heavily into extra shards expecting they would be rewarded. Like most investments based on speculations, it did not work out and they got burned.
2) P2P "dolphins" - maybe a little, as they likely have several 7* characters and possibly some extra shards in each. But it would seem they too would run into similar problems to the whales - many of the characters in the shard shop they already have or are simply lousy toons (especially when the options are only 6 toons and 2 shards per day). But maybe for a small handful it might help them "finish up" a few hard-to-get shards - but good Lord, 10:1?
Most dolphins have few excess shards. They have not bought enough chromiums to 7* things, and so all they would have as extras would be oddballs from bronzium pulls or GW. Personally, I have a grand total of 4.
This shop holds little appeal to this dolphin anyway. I'm currently sitting on 16,000 arena tokens and 20,000 GW tokens, and that's after a week spent farming a character from each. The reason is not so much because I expect something great to be added there, but because little in either place interests me right now.
But to farm excess Sid/Lumi shards to trade in, there would have to be something worth spending 10x as many shards on. That doesn't seem likely. Even if I don't see a need now for Eeth Koth or CUP or ST Han or Resistance Pilot or whatever, I'd rather get those guys in anticipation of possible use than throw away 90% of my resources.
For perspective, 20k GW tokens is enough to 6* a character. Traded in, it's barely enough to unlock a 2*.
To get a full 7* from the shard shop would require 264,000 GW tokens. That means doing GW perfectly for 7 straight months, while also not getting anything else from those shipments.
Honest question for the whales and possibly the dolphins. Did you expect to just roll into the shard shop and just buy full toons immediately? What rate did you expect a profit based game to give you?
I expected a ratio of 5:1, because that seemed reasonable to me. After all, the majority of the shards I turned into shard currency I had bought through Chromium packs.
But as I spent more money on the game, it started punishing me by randomly making some shards worth one tenth of regular shards. And the more packs I bought, the more this would happen.
This feels like a strange and not entirely thought through MO. Discouraging people from buying more by randomly punishing them for already having maxed out a toon? Who does that?
So that's why I did expect that the shard shop would have at least decent exchange rates. Also that it wouldn't try to sell me back my own stuff.
Thank you for the input @Qeltar and @Nonemo - and therein lies my point. Whales and Dolphins find it useless...as do F2P players and "light" P2P players ($50< like me).
Serious question for anyone saying they like it:
What do you like about it in its current form?
(Please note: this is NOT what do you like about "the concept" or "what do you like about what it might look like later")
In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie
In game guild: TNR Uprising I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
Thank you for the input @Qeltar and @Nonemo - and therein lies my point. Whales and Dolphins find it useless...as do F2P players and "light" P2P players ($50< like me).
Serious question for anyone saying they like it:
What do you like about it in its current form?
(Please note: this is NOT what do you like about "the concept" or "what do you like about what it might look like later")
Thank you for the input @Qeltar and @Nonemo - and therein lies my point. Whales and Dolphins find it useless...as do F2P players and "light" P2P players ($50< like me).
Serious question for anyone saying they like it:
What do you like about it in its current form?
(Please note: this is NOT what do you like about "the concept" or "what do you like about what it might look like later")
Its better than nothing.
*sigh* if it serves no practical purpose for any player at any level it IS, in effect, nothing.
In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie
In game guild: TNR Uprising I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
It does have a use, but only for players in a very specific band: those who bought enough chromiums to accumulate a bunch of excess shards but not enough to max out a lot of characters. These are the "79/80 Darth Maul" shard folks... assuming chromium characters appear in the rotation. If they don't, then even these folks won't have much use for it.
Now they've said they will be adjusting it, and I also read somewhere that the exchange rate will be more favorable on the special character. So we probably should wait til the end of the month and then reassess.
Replies
Possibly. I got 10 Barriss Shards out of 23 sim rolls when things refreshed tonight, and got my last 12 Rey shards from 32 battles on hard mode (The Barris drops were high; my long term drop rate sits around 30-35% for shards on both Cantina and Hard modes).
Just keep rollin, you'll get there.
QFT.
That said, for some reason EA and CG doesn't seem to like encouraging people to spend.
I am kind of glad I gave up spending on this game.
I really do hope EA_Jesse starts to gather and act on feedback from players spending on the game. I'm sure they would have noticed a dip in their revenue stream by now, from all the frustrated players who used to pay for the game.
http://imgur.com/hOvWYro
An exchange rate of 10 to 1 is just too poor to be able to get a worthwhile return, even more so when it's random luck who and when you can spend the currency on.
I'm actually a bit miffed that shard shop automatically converted by existing surplus shards, because I'm convinced this will be a barely used feature until the exchange rate is improved, so I'd rather have kept my shards until then.
There are plenty ways to fix this (biting my tongue to avoid another post going on a tangent) so hopefully this feature will get tweaked.
It does, however, go without saying that they won't make it were you can spend large chunks. They would like some pacing...
Who do you it actually caters for then? No one else has enough currency to purchase the main item(s) like the exclusive hero and the heroes under 7* that finally show.
Interesting. Did you asked them how it was going to be adjusted?
There was little to no further information from the developer outside of saying that there could be room for improvement. Was said that "it will be monitored"...
1) This thread and others like it explain well why it doesn't help whales - it simply offers them characters they already have at 10:1 ratio...and slow rate of exchange. Horrible for them, definitely.
2) P2P "dolphins" - maybe a little, as they likely have several 7* characters and possibly some extra shards in each. But it would seem they too would run into similar problems to the whales - many of the characters in the shard shop they already have or are simply lousy toons (especially when the options are only 6 toons and 2 shards per day). But maybe for a small handful it might help them "finish up" a few hard-to-get shards - but good Lord, 10:1?
3) F2P has obviously no interest in this. They can even barely get their toons to 7* and gear them to keep up with the ever-increasing meta in Arena and still complete GW on a regular basis, let alone have extra shards. Useless to F2P.
At best, this might slightly be liked by a handful of dolphins as far as I can tell. But even then, the 10:1 ratio is so horrible, it's almost better to simply wait until something that actually has value comes along.
To be honest, this is the only part of the update I was fairly disappointed in. Everything else is good - but this seems like a big waste of everyone's time (devs and players) - as it really suits no purpose for almost anyone.
That said, all of the above is predicated on the Shard Shop remaining as is. Maybe if they make some major changes to its ratio, or refresh or characters offered or all of the above, it might be useful. At least they put it off to the side so you don't have to scroll past useless real estate in the home screen.
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
just a question
All I hear is complaints. What was your hope? I get you have a ton of shards. You spent money to have these toons faster. You have got to dominate GW and arena. You have the cool toons. That was the benefit to spending early. Nothing is "owed" to you.
I'm truly not being ugly about this, I'm curious for some well thought out answers.
A few people invested heavily into extra shards expecting they would be rewarded. Like most investments based on speculations, it did not work out and they got burned.
This shop holds little appeal to this dolphin anyway. I'm currently sitting on 16,000 arena tokens and 20,000 GW tokens, and that's after a week spent farming a character from each. The reason is not so much because I expect something great to be added there, but because little in either place interests me right now.
But to farm excess Sid/Lumi shards to trade in, there would have to be something worth spending 10x as many shards on. That doesn't seem likely. Even if I don't see a need now for Eeth Koth or CUP or ST Han or Resistance Pilot or whatever, I'd rather get those guys in anticipation of possible use than throw away 90% of my resources.
For perspective, 20k GW tokens is enough to 6* a character. Traded in, it's barely enough to unlock a 2*.
To get a full 7* from the shard shop would require 264,000 GW tokens. That means doing GW perfectly for 7 straight months, while also not getting anything else from those shipments.
I expected a ratio of 5:1, because that seemed reasonable to me. After all, the majority of the shards I turned into shard currency I had bought through Chromium packs.
But as I spent more money on the game, it started punishing me by randomly making some shards worth one tenth of regular shards. And the more packs I bought, the more this would happen.
This feels like a strange and not entirely thought through MO. Discouraging people from buying more by randomly punishing them for already having maxed out a toon? Who does that?
So that's why I did expect that the shard shop would have at least decent exchange rates. Also that it wouldn't try to sell me back my own stuff.
Serious question for anyone saying they like it:
What do you like about it in its current form?
(Please note: this is NOT what do you like about "the concept" or "what do you like about what it might look like later")
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
Its better than nothing.
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
Now they've said they will be adjusting it, and I also read somewhere that the exchange rate will be more favorable on the special character. So we probably should wait til the end of the month and then reassess.