After thinking about it, if a special offer popped for legendary citations for 9.99 USD, I’d buy a few. Maybe more than a few.
So I’m thinking of this as that legendary cite, plus 2200 honor, plus 5x 10-pulls... all for the same price. Plus some other goodies. Just, DB, don’t ruin campaigns like this again, please?
I think people are forgetting the epic magnitude of the DBacle known as PicardGate.
To refresh everyone's memory:
-DB selects Mirror Picard as mega event crew and offers 4 copies during mega event
-after multiple inquiries from players, DB confirms the *only* way to get a 5th star is Double Your Crew offer, or citation
-players wanting to FF pay real money, or a month's worth of earned honor to use a citation
-right after the event was over, DB gives every player a "free" copy of Mirror Picard
And here's where it gets dicey:
-DB sees NOTHING WRONG with giving away the free Mirror Picard
-initially, DB offers NO compensation for having lied to the player base (especially painful for players who paid real money for DYC offer, but still very painful for players who gave up 50k honor for a citation)
Sugar on top:
-DB finally caves and goes the customer service roulette route of offering compensation resulting in (spin the Dabo wheel):
- no compensation (or multiple follow up tickets before getting it)
- delayed compensation (up to or over a week to respond bc of ticket volumes)
- small minority of players who get compensation within 12 hours (while remaining players are waiting for 2-12 days)
-vast majority of players stuck holding their duplicate Mirror Picard/550 honor bc they're not avid or even casual forum readers
Aftermath:
-DB finally changes their stance on mega event crew (can be granted in other ways)
-DB promises to reevaluate their crew selection strategy
Which brings me to the summary:
-DB is counting on the majority of players who do not read forums/reddit/etc and is preying off of those players
-DB did not fulfill their promise to reevaluate their crew selection strategy as evidenced by this decision (and a second slap to players' faces by stating again that they would reevaluate crew selection strategy)
- secondary note: promises to reevaluate anything are outright meaningless. DB will not actually change anything. They will simply wait 2-20 months, hope that players forget/get enough new players who would benefit from their callous decisions
Everyone who is new: you're right. You will benefit from a free Mirror Picard. No one is debating that. However, equally painful is new players' dismissive attitude to older players' concerns.
Why all this matters:
In game rewards should be relatively equal to all players.
Why should one player get the equivalent of 50-100k honor/15k dilithium (either a citation or a brand new 5* character from honor hall/faction store) and others get a palty 550 honor?
DB's in game economics & mechanics puts this "free" compensation at odds with itself. (ridiculous exchange rate for duplicate crew, no mechanism tk skew probability towards crew you don't have)
Meanwhile, players have made MULTIPLE suggestions on how to level the playing field including (but not limited to):
-selecting the least-held FF crew
-employing a behold instead of a fixed crew (could still be a themed behold of 5* Picards, in this example)
-offer a 5* citation instead of 550 honor
-or the best one yet: a nested solution: behold with a citation as one option (best of both worlds, esp for longtime/high paying players who have started hitting FF beholds)
-and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of others
All of these suggestions have been ignored and instead DB chooses to prey on/slap players.
- It's interesting that over the course of three months, the exclusivity of the legendary has decreased (weekday pack not in portal -> event reward not in portal -> previous mega crew in portal), but (arguably) the card quality/strength has increased each time. I favor the latter, so I'd rather a strong crew who many players probably have (FO Burnham or da Vinci) than a rare, but uninspiring card. So far I'm glad to see that campaigns have offered three crew along different points on the spectrum and hope that continues.
- It doesn't need to be 'the best variant or bust' with the campaigns. We were actually pretty fortunate to get two strong, out-of-portal super rares for free from the first two months. If anything, that may have set expectations too high. We've gone through this before with Mega events; if the premise is for DB to provide a strong/well known mega crew to get players excited for the month, then it's clear that DB doesn't fully agree from their previous actions. The people expecting Gary Seven or Mambo Picard in the guessing thread(s) were setting themselves up for disappointment.
- There were going to be complaints no matter who they chose. New variant; "He already has the most versions in the game!" Smitten Picard; "I'm not paying for a 2-skiller" Augment Picard "I'm not paying for non-canon". The suggestions I've seen most, ISP and Mambo, are arguably his strongest and most exclusive variants. It's easy to see why that would not be desirable for DB's business.
- Admiral Picard is more disappointing the more I think about it. If they're not going to plan their campaigns a month ahead of time, then at least be willing to pivot to someone who wasn't given away so recently. Have no problem with other aspects of the crew like portal status or power level and as someone mentioned, the Admiral part makes sense as it pertains to the new show.
- I'm curious how campaigns have affected DB's overall sales. I've heard several people say that they're spending less overall since campaigns offer such good value and the 'reward' feeling every day.
- Saying one of the company's sales is 'a slap in the face' makes it hard to take you seriously. It doesn't work that way in any other walk of life. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop and telling them one of the meals they sell is a slap in the face to you because they ran a promotion two years ago where they gave away a free sandwich. Criticism is warranted, but the hyperbole doesn't help the argument.
I don't have a problem with this, even though I've both FFFE.
The problem is with Mega legendaries, players around at the time easily got a 4/5, later joining players have to wait for them to enter the portal but want them.
Personally, I'd rather 2-day versions of individual Mega events were ran midweek every few months and keep the Mega legendaries out of the portal.
Means if you can't be bothered citing or DYCing a Mega legendary, just wait a year or so and you've a chance at a fifth copy, whilst newer players just need patience to get them.
Despite my 5/5 Mirror Picard, I'm happy to get another copy of the sixteenth-best Voyager (he was fourteenth on Monday!). In fact, I'd prefer a second Mirror Picard than them doing Smitten or Enterprise-E Picard, even though I have a 1/5 Smitten Picard!
Admiral Picard is bizarre, though. Galen might be more useful for players with his strong Sci, or perhaps Tommy Gun Dixon - doesn't he help newer players clear a node?
Irumodic Syndrome Picard is probably the only super-rare Picard they have to offer me, personally, but I can understand why he's not in there. I can stretch my good will from last month's Fugitive Spock to cover this month, too!
Edit: wait, what am I saying?! If lots of people boycott the campaign, it'll give me an advantage! *Ahem* DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS, PEOPLE. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS! SHOW THEM WE WON'T ACCEPT THIS INSULTING BEHAVIOR!
I started playing last February, so despite over a year in the game I have no copies of Mirror Picard. So this is good news for me! I think they’ll make plenty of money off of newer players.
But I totally understand the gripes. For me the rest of the campaign rewards are worth the $10, but I definitely wouldn’t be happy if the legendary offered was completely superfluous to my crew.
the Admiral part makes sense as it pertains to the new show.
I respectfully disagree on this point. This Admiral Picard is merely a hologram meant to deceive Riker, not any version of him that we should expect to see in the new show.
In the Picard teaser, we see images of Picard's vineyard, the Chateau Picard wine bottles, and the narration indicates that he's left Starfleet. Other than the clean-shaven Picard seen at the end of the teaser, everything points to this being closer to the Irumodic Syndrome version seen in the TNG series finale. So if DB's intent was to tie this campaign into the new show, IS Picard is the only variant that makes any real sense.
That said, I am not one to complain about free stuff, so I'll just take all of the other goodies from the free campaign rewards and be content with that.
- Saying one of the company's sales is 'a slap in the face' makes it hard to take you seriously. It doesn't work that way in any other walk of life. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop and telling them one of the meals they sell is a slap in the face to you because they ran a promotion two years ago where they gave away a free sandwich. Criticism is warranted, but the hyperbole doesn't help the argument.
I (hope I) didn't use that particular phrasing, but I do feel annoyed by this decision. I think the analogy goes more along the lines of: You, ordering the egg salad sandwich in a sandwich shop, being blown away by the taste but getting salmonella, going back there a few weeks later only to find them advertising "The good ol' egg salad sandwich - beloved by customers!"
The card is controversial, and at least the forums mods and DB's customer service know about that. I can understand people assuming malice where incompetence is probably the more likely explanation, even though personally I would not agree.
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
It's all been said, but I know that a lot of new players want their crack at getting Mirror Picard, and Campaigns are still a great way to get stuff in general. I might still buy in even with my FF'd Picard because that 5* citation is just... MWAH (chef's kiss)!
Just curious... Of all the dag-gum crew and all the Picards... Why in the heck Mirror Picard? #PicardGate Why would go guys ever even select a Mega Event crew to begin with? A crew that's almost a common - it's kinda depressing - you dig?
“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
There really isn’t. The 2% of the playerbase are almost certainly the whales, who probably make up 25% of DB’s revenues. If I were in DB’s shoes, I wouldn’t be ticking them off. Also, DB probably considered that if a player started after the Mirror mega, they likely don’t have many/any copies of Mirror Picard.
For the record, I run 2 accounts: 1 has an immortalized Mirror Picard and the other does not have a single copy of Mirror Picard. I plan to buy campaigns on both accounts because Mirror Picard is one of the cards that is worth duplicating. They’re likely to do a Picard mega when that show is released, so having a second duplicate of one of the best Picard cards would be great.
If I may, if this is going to turn into a full-blown "thing", I'd like to propose that this be referred to as Picardturnstile, just to make it clear to people when discussing it later so they won't be confused with any other scandals involving Picard-related fence openings.
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
There really isn’t. The 2% of the playerbase are almost certainly the whales, who probably make up 25% of DB’s revenues. If I were in DB’s shoes, I wouldn’t be ticking them off. Also, DB probably considered that if a player started after the Mirror mega, they likely don’t have many/any copies of Mirror Picard.
For the record, I run 2 accounts: 1 has an immortalized Mirror Picard and the other does not have a single copy of Mirror Picard. I plan to buy campaigns on both accounts because Mirror Picard is one of the cards that is worth duplicating. They’re likely to do a Picard mega when that show is released, so having a second duplicate of one of the best Picard cards would be great.
The whales see the Legendary citation for $9.99 and they just cannot wait to get it.
Edit: double your crew offer for $9.99 without the items. But possible to get better items.
Admiral picard was in a very recent event. He doesn't seem like the best option. Tommy gun Dixon was better perhaps?
Anyone who has been around long enough has mirror picard on 5/5. Lots of newer players can also have picked him up from a behold later, as he's already in the portal.
Mu guess is DB is testing their campaign sales with a weaker card. The rest pf the rewards are still very good of course
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
There really isn’t. The 2% of the playerbase are almost certainly the whales, who probably make up 25% of DB’s revenues. If I were in DB’s shoes, I wouldn’t be ticking them off. Also, DB probably considered that if a player started after the Mirror mega, they likely don’t have many/any copies of Mirror Picard.
I don't understand.
Assumptions:
- player satisfaction is a function of obtaining a 1) useful and 2) not previously owned card
- a card that was offered in a pack only in contrast to an event reward will be owned by fewer people
- a card that is in circulation in the portal will be owned by more people
- a card that was a recurring mega event reward in contrast to other pack- or event cards will be owned by more people
- a card given out via in game mail will be owned by 100% of the people active at the time
Based on these assumptions, if one wants to maximize player satisfaction, he should offer a card that: was so far not a mega event recurring, is not currently in the portal and has never been a gift to players. Because this card will most likely to be not 2) previously owned by the largest share of players. Of course there will always be the 2% who have any given card immortalized, but these numbers are clearly smaller than offering a former recurring mega, who has been in the portal for ages and was given out for free, even if you didn't participate at all in those events back then.
If DB wanted to please 99.99% of the players, they would need to offer a completely new card in the premium track.
the Admiral part makes sense as it pertains to the new show.
In the Picard teaser, we see images of Picard's vineyard, the Chateau Picard wine bottles, and the narration indicates that he's left Starfleet. Other than the clean-shaven Picard seen at the end of the teaser, everything points to this being closer to the Irumodic Syndrome version seen in the TNG series finale. So if DB's intent was to tie this campaign into the new show, IS Picard is the only variant that makes any real sense.
Well, she refers to him as Admiral in the teaser (I think). It wasn't my point, but I agree(d) with it - I think either works. For a mobile game hoping to latch on to current viewers, maybe they thought 'Hey, we have an Admiral Picard already, let's offer him'. If there was as much thought put into it as you suggest, we probably wouldn't have had a Picard that was so recently available anyways.
- Saying one of the company's sales is 'a slap in the face' makes it hard to take you seriously. It doesn't work that way in any other walk of life. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop and telling them one of the meals they sell is a slap in the face to you because they ran a promotion two years ago where they gave away a free sandwich. Criticism is warranted, but the hyperbole doesn't help the argument.
I (hope I) didn't use that particular phrasing, but I do feel annoyed by this decision.
Yea, that's pretty understandable. I think the majority prefer new/collectible stuff rather than duplicating a good crew and that feedback will be valuable to DB. My eyes just started rolling at how many times I've seen that phrase.
- Saying one of the company's sales is 'a slap in the face' makes it hard to take you seriously. It doesn't work that way in any other walk of life. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop and telling them one of the meals they sell is a slap in the face to you because they ran a promotion two years ago where they gave away a free sandwich. Criticism is warranted, but the hyperbole doesn't help the argument.
There is clearly a right answer here.
Can't the 'right' answer be an amalgam of answers? They've done a good job thus far of offering three different styles of crew in three consecutive months. Maybe to gauge sales, maybe to keep things fresh and cater to everyone. Personally, I'm more excited about a(nother) JLP than either of the previous two crew.
Maybe avoiding previous megas is for the best (maybe not. new[er] players see them around a lot and want them), but rotating styles of old/new and weak/powerful is probably healthy for everyone. I've seen several people happy to fuse up an old, poor card that they won in events long ago.
If I may, if this is going to turn into a full-blown "thing", I'd like to propose that this be referred to as Picardturnstile, just to make it clear to people when discussing it later so they won't be confused with any other scandals involving Picard-related fence openings.
I vote Picard-gate-2: Wrath of DB.
I'm a sucker for sequels.
If I may, if this is going to turn into a full-blown "thing", I'd like to propose that this be referred to as Picardturnstile, just to make it clear to people when discussing it later so they won't be confused with any other scandals involving Picard-related fence openings.
I vote Picard-gate-2: Wrath of DB.
I'm a sucker for sequels.
I vote for starting to re-run Megas starting with the Mirror Picard Mega: Picardgate III: The Search for my 15th copy of Mirror Picard
“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
Chiming in to let you know that I do appreciate all the feedback provided in this thread and so does the team.
I want to reiterate something though: the crew featured in campaigns will not always appeal to everyone. There will be hits, there will be misses. That being said we will iterate on our crew selection process.
Shan,
I appreciate your comment and the idea that our feedback is being taken into consideration. With that said, you asserted "the crew featured will not always appeal to everyone.". My attempt to logically respond to this is...If a crew is one of, if not THE MOST widely owned FE 5* crew in game, and DB has ownership statistics, why would they knowingly and DELIBERATELY pick a card that will appeal to the smallest population possible?
please stop saying that. His mega happened 20 months ago. ANY player starting after that very likely does not have him FF. they also need to consider newer players and balance, and he is certainly a crowd pleaser generally popular card.
I wouldn't say Mirror Picard is a Crowd Pleaser.
“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
I think the thread shows the heavy skew of the forums to longtime players if anything. The idea that "everyone" or even "most" players have Mirror Picard is just wrong and neglects how many new players there are since his event. Maybe everyone who routinely places in the top 1000 has him, but there are thousands of others who don't. I know a bunch of people in my fleet who will be opening their wallets for the first time for this campaign because they are so excited about Mirror Picard. I suspect much is true among the "newer" players. "Newer" being a relative term anyway, since I've been playing just over a year but don't have him myself. Mirror Picard is a good call DB.
I too, think they could have done better on the super rare than Admiral since we just had an event featuring him, but then that level of stuff are all freebies anyway, so really, who can complain?
He was the Recurring. Four copies for making like 25 K in each Event. Then they mailed out a copy to everyone over {IIRC} the Mirror Troi Event problem. Many of us who had him had already cited or spent actual folding cashy money on the fifth Star......
He was not the 5* in a single Event. So, top 1000 did not affect getting him. Just for clarification.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
There really isn’t. The 2% of the playerbase are almost certainly the whales, who probably make up 25% of DB’s revenues. If I were in DB’s shoes, I wouldn’t be ticking them off. Also, DB probably considered that if a player started after the Mirror mega, they likely don’t have many/any copies of Mirror Picard.
I don't understand.
Assumptions:
- player satisfaction is a function of obtaining a 1) useful and 2) not previously owned card
- a card that was offered in a pack only in contrast to an event reward will be owned by fewer people
- a card that is in circulation in the portal will be owned by more people
- a card that was a recurring mega event reward in contrast to other pack- or event cards will be owned by more people
- a card given out via in game mail will be owned by 100% of the people active at the time
Based on these assumptions, if one wants to maximize player satisfaction, he should offer a card that: was so far not a mega event recurring, is not currently in the portal and has never been a gift to players. Because this card will most likely to be not 2) previously owned by the largest share of players. Of course there will always be the 2% who have any given card immortalized, but these numbers are clearly smaller than offering a former recurring mega, who has been in the portal for ages and was given out for free, even if you didn't participate at all in those events back then.
If DB wanted to please 99.99% of the players, they would need to offer a completely new card in the premium track.
DB doesn't want to maximize player satisfaction. If they did they would offer a fourth copy of the 4* in threshold, increase the odds on all packs, and block all immortalized beholds.
DB wants to maximize long term revenue. Player satisfaction is a part of that, but it also contains a lot more.
Will featuring a card a lot of people have FF decrease sales? Probably, but by how much? People have already said they will buy the campaign for the citation and other features.
Will featuring a recent pack only card decrease sales on future packs? Probably, some people will say, "why should I spend money chasing this pack now when the card will show up in a campaign soon".
How much will a good common card sell in a campaign vs an average rare card?
How much will any of that happen? I have no idea. How much will the pack sales offset the campaign sales? I have no idea, either. But DB wants to figure that all out. That's what they're trying here. They'll see how it works and adjust campaigns in the future.
But just assuming that DB needs to make the most number of players happy will never be the right answer.
I had a chuckle to myself earlier...if I had just kept that sixth Mirror Picard rather than asking for a refund, I could have two immortal Mirror Picards a month from now. That wouldn’t be the worst thing I can think of for voyages and might have been worth $10 all on its own.
It’s hard to plan ahead, though, and that’s why I believe that having strong 5* crew offered in Campaigns won’t have an effect on pack sales. DB knows (or should know) what they’re doing weeks or months in advance but we don’t and shouldn’t expect any such foreknowledge...to look at an event and say “I’m not going to try for a top rank because I bet that card will be in a campaign in a few months” would be incredibly foolish.
Do I think a top-10 or top-20 voyager will ever be in a campaign? Probably not. But I wouldn’t entirely rule it out either if they want to have a temporary boost in sales...
If I may, if this is going to turn into a full-blown "thing", I'd like to propose that this be referred to as Picardturnstile, just to make it clear to people when discussing it later so they won't be confused with any other scandals involving Picard-related fence openings.
PicardGate 2: Electric Boogaloo
PicardGate 2: Picard Harder
PicardGate 2: The Wrath of Whales
Quite a few people don't have him, as has been said. Those who do, just decide if you want to spend $9.99 this month, for the other stuff in the Paid Track.
Personal choice.
Would be interesting to see comparisons after the Picard Campaign is over of the three months.
How many paid for Section 31
How many paid for Pock
How many paid for Picard
Simplest way to see if there was variation. Even if there were, however, would not necessarily mean anything concrete. Lots of reasons more or less choose to do it.
I bought 2 Pocks
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
I run a free2play account on Facebook. Well, I spent money in there a couple of times. In any case, guess who the ONLY immortalized legendary in that 2 year old account is?
Mirror Jean Luc Gunshow MotherTerran Picard.
I bet that's true for a LOT of the F2P players who have been around a while.
DB wasn't going to get money from F2P players anyway - whether they've played 2 years or not.
The point of campaigns I believe from DB's point of view are to try to get F2P and casual small spenders to start spending money or to spend more money. It is to tempt them into paying $10 a month to get a 5/5 legendary or a 4/5 legendary and a citation along with the other stuff. To get people who do not usually spend or do not spend much to start plunking down $10 a month. Picking two crew that many people already have works against that plan. I am a casual small spender. I had been buying the campaigns. DB was getting $10 extra from me each month. They will not be getting that $10 this month from me. They would have gotten $10 from me if it was another Picard legendary. Simple as that.
I run a free2play account on Facebook. Well, I spent money in there a couple of times. In any case, guess who the ONLY immortalized legendary in that 2 year old account is?
Mirror Jean Luc Gunshow MotherTerran Picard.
I bet that's true for a LOT of the F2P players who have been around a while.
DB wasn't going to get money from F2P players anyway - whether they've played 2 years or not.
The point of campaigns I believe from DB's point of view are to try to get F2P and casual small spenders to start spending more money. It is to tempt them into paying $10 a month to get a 5/5 legendary or a 4/5 legendary and a citation along with the other stuff. To get people who do not usually spend or do not spend much to start plunking down $10 a month. Picking two crew that many people already have works against that plan. I am a casual small spender. I had been buying the campaigns. DB was getting $10 extra from me each month. They will not be getting that $10 this month from me. They would have gotten $10 from me if it was another Picard legendary. Simple as that.
Good summary of the intent of the Campaign Premium Track, as I see it. People who do have $10 to get a 5* FFed plus all that other stuff, might be more likely to do it, instead of a 1* for $10 plus a lot less extra stuff......
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
If I may, if this is going to turn into a full-blown "thing", I'd like to propose that this be referred to as Picardturnstile, just to make it clear to people when discussing it later so they won't be confused with any other scandals involving Picard-related fence openings.
I vote Picard-gate-2: Wrath of DB.
I'm a sucker for sequels.
I vote for starting to re-run Megas starting with the Mirror Picard Mega: Picardgate III: The Search for my 15th copy of Mirror Picard
woah, that's like megagate man, far out.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
Comments
So I’m thinking of this as that legendary cite, plus 2200 honor, plus 5x 10-pulls... all for the same price. Plus some other goodies. Just, DB, don’t ruin campaigns like this again, please?
To refresh everyone's memory:
-DB selects Mirror Picard as mega event crew and offers 4 copies during mega event
-after multiple inquiries from players, DB confirms the *only* way to get a 5th star is Double Your Crew offer, or citation
-players wanting to FF pay real money, or a month's worth of earned honor to use a citation
-right after the event was over, DB gives every player a "free" copy of Mirror Picard
And here's where it gets dicey:
-DB sees NOTHING WRONG with giving away the free Mirror Picard
-initially, DB offers NO compensation for having lied to the player base (especially painful for players who paid real money for DYC offer, but still very painful for players who gave up 50k honor for a citation)
Sugar on top:
-DB finally caves and goes the customer service roulette route of offering compensation resulting in (spin the Dabo wheel):
- no compensation (or multiple follow up tickets before getting it)
- delayed compensation (up to or over a week to respond bc of ticket volumes)
- small minority of players who get compensation within 12 hours (while remaining players are waiting for 2-12 days)
-vast majority of players stuck holding their duplicate Mirror Picard/550 honor bc they're not avid or even casual forum readers
Aftermath:
-DB finally changes their stance on mega event crew (can be granted in other ways)
-DB promises to reevaluate their crew selection strategy
Which brings me to the summary:
-DB is counting on the majority of players who do not read forums/reddit/etc and is preying off of those players
-DB did not fulfill their promise to reevaluate their crew selection strategy as evidenced by this decision (and a second slap to players' faces by stating again that they would reevaluate crew selection strategy)
- secondary note: promises to reevaluate anything are outright meaningless. DB will not actually change anything. They will simply wait 2-20 months, hope that players forget/get enough new players who would benefit from their callous decisions
Everyone who is new: you're right. You will benefit from a free Mirror Picard. No one is debating that. However, equally painful is new players' dismissive attitude to older players' concerns.
Why all this matters:
In game rewards should be relatively equal to all players.
Why should one player get the equivalent of 50-100k honor/15k dilithium (either a citation or a brand new 5* character from honor hall/faction store) and others get a palty 550 honor?
DB's in game economics & mechanics puts this "free" compensation at odds with itself. (ridiculous exchange rate for duplicate crew, no mechanism tk skew probability towards crew you don't have)
Meanwhile, players have made MULTIPLE suggestions on how to level the playing field including (but not limited to):
-selecting the least-held FF crew
-employing a behold instead of a fixed crew (could still be a themed behold of 5* Picards, in this example)
-offer a 5* citation instead of 550 honor
-or the best one yet: a nested solution: behold with a citation as one option (best of both worlds, esp for longtime/high paying players who have started hitting FF beholds)
-and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of others
All of these suggestions have been ignored and instead DB chooses to prey on/slap players.
- It doesn't need to be 'the best variant or bust' with the campaigns. We were actually pretty fortunate to get two strong, out-of-portal super rares for free from the first two months. If anything, that may have set expectations too high. We've gone through this before with Mega events; if the premise is for DB to provide a strong/well known mega crew to get players excited for the month, then it's clear that DB doesn't fully agree from their previous actions. The people expecting Gary Seven or Mambo Picard in the guessing thread(s) were setting themselves up for disappointment.
- There were going to be complaints no matter who they chose. New variant; "He already has the most versions in the game!" Smitten Picard; "I'm not paying for a 2-skiller" Augment Picard "I'm not paying for non-canon". The suggestions I've seen most, ISP and Mambo, are arguably his strongest and most exclusive variants. It's easy to see why that would not be desirable for DB's business.
- Admiral Picard is more disappointing the more I think about it. If they're not going to plan their campaigns a month ahead of time, then at least be willing to pivot to someone who wasn't given away so recently. Have no problem with other aspects of the crew like portal status or power level and as someone mentioned, the Admiral part makes sense as it pertains to the new show.
- I'm curious how campaigns have affected DB's overall sales. I've heard several people say that they're spending less overall since campaigns offer such good value and the 'reward' feeling every day.
- Saying one of the company's sales is 'a slap in the face' makes it hard to take you seriously. It doesn't work that way in any other walk of life. Imagine walking into a sandwich shop and telling them one of the meals they sell is a slap in the face to you because they ran a promotion two years ago where they gave away a free sandwich. Criticism is warranted, but the hyperbole doesn't help the argument.
The problem is with Mega legendaries, players around at the time easily got a 4/5, later joining players have to wait for them to enter the portal but want them.
Personally, I'd rather 2-day versions of individual Mega events were ran midweek every few months and keep the Mega legendaries out of the portal.
Means if you can't be bothered citing or DYCing a Mega legendary, just wait a year or so and you've a chance at a fifth copy, whilst newer players just need patience to get them.
Admiral Picard is bizarre, though. Galen might be more useful for players with his strong Sci, or perhaps Tommy Gun Dixon - doesn't he help newer players clear a node?
Irumodic Syndrome Picard is probably the only super-rare Picard they have to offer me, personally, but I can understand why he's not in there. I can stretch my good will from last month's Fugitive Spock to cover this month, too!
Edit: wait, what am I saying?! If lots of people boycott the campaign, it'll give me an advantage! *Ahem* DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS, PEOPLE. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS! SHOW THEM WE WON'T ACCEPT THIS INSULTING BEHAVIOR!
But I totally understand the gripes. For me the rest of the campaign rewards are worth the $10, but I definitely wouldn’t be happy if the legendary offered was completely superfluous to my crew.
I respectfully disagree on this point. This Admiral Picard is merely a hologram meant to deceive Riker, not any version of him that we should expect to see in the new show.
In the Picard teaser, we see images of Picard's vineyard, the Chateau Picard wine bottles, and the narration indicates that he's left Starfleet. Other than the clean-shaven Picard seen at the end of the teaser, everything points to this being closer to the Irumodic Syndrome version seen in the TNG series finale. So if DB's intent was to tie this campaign into the new show, IS Picard is the only variant that makes any real sense.
That said, I am not one to complain about free stuff, so I'll just take all of the other goodies from the free campaign rewards and be content with that.
I (hope I) didn't use that particular phrasing, but I do feel annoyed by this decision. I think the analogy goes more along the lines of: You, ordering the egg salad sandwich in a sandwich shop, being blown away by the taste but getting salmonella, going back there a few weeks later only to find them advertising "The good ol' egg salad sandwich - beloved by customers!"
The card is controversial, and at least the forums mods and DB's customer service know about that. I can understand people assuming malice where incompetence is probably the more likely explanation, even though personally I would not agree.
And to reiterate: Nobody loses out had a more recent card been offered. Newer players won't have cards that were introduced in packs only and not yet in the portal just as likely as older ones. This is a game of numbers. Either please 98% of your player base, or 90%, or 85%, or 50%. There is clearly a right answer here.
Just curious... Of all the dag-gum crew and all the Picards... Why in the heck Mirror Picard? #PicardGate Why would go guys ever even select a Mega Event crew to begin with? A crew that's almost a common - it's kinda depressing - you dig?
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
There really isn’t. The 2% of the playerbase are almost certainly the whales, who probably make up 25% of DB’s revenues. If I were in DB’s shoes, I wouldn’t be ticking them off. Also, DB probably considered that if a player started after the Mirror mega, they likely don’t have many/any copies of Mirror Picard.
For the record, I run 2 accounts: 1 has an immortalized Mirror Picard and the other does not have a single copy of Mirror Picard. I plan to buy campaigns on both accounts because Mirror Picard is one of the cards that is worth duplicating. They’re likely to do a Picard mega when that show is released, so having a second duplicate of one of the best Picard cards would be great.
The whales see the Legendary citation for $9.99 and they just cannot wait to get it.
Edit: double your crew offer for $9.99 without the items. But possible to get better items.
Anyone who has been around long enough has mirror picard on 5/5. Lots of newer players can also have picked him up from a behold later, as he's already in the portal.
Mu guess is DB is testing their campaign sales with a weaker card. The rest pf the rewards are still very good of course
I don't understand.
Assumptions:
- player satisfaction is a function of obtaining a 1) useful and 2) not previously owned card
- a card that was offered in a pack only in contrast to an event reward will be owned by fewer people
- a card that is in circulation in the portal will be owned by more people
- a card that was a recurring mega event reward in contrast to other pack- or event cards will be owned by more people
- a card given out via in game mail will be owned by 100% of the people active at the time
Based on these assumptions, if one wants to maximize player satisfaction, he should offer a card that: was so far not a mega event recurring, is not currently in the portal and has never been a gift to players. Because this card will most likely to be not 2) previously owned by the largest share of players. Of course there will always be the 2% who have any given card immortalized, but these numbers are clearly smaller than offering a former recurring mega, who has been in the portal for ages and was given out for free, even if you didn't participate at all in those events back then.
If DB wanted to please 99.99% of the players, they would need to offer a completely new card in the premium track.
Well, she refers to him as Admiral in the teaser (I think). It wasn't my point, but I agree(d) with it - I think either works. For a mobile game hoping to latch on to current viewers, maybe they thought 'Hey, we have an Admiral Picard already, let's offer him'. If there was as much thought put into it as you suggest, we probably wouldn't have had a Picard that was so recently available anyways.
Yea, that's pretty understandable. I think the majority prefer new/collectible stuff rather than duplicating a good crew and that feedback will be valuable to DB. My eyes just started rolling at how many times I've seen that phrase.
Can't the 'right' answer be an amalgam of answers? They've done a good job thus far of offering three different styles of crew in three consecutive months. Maybe to gauge sales, maybe to keep things fresh and cater to everyone. Personally, I'm more excited about a(nother) JLP than either of the previous two crew.
Maybe avoiding previous megas is for the best (maybe not. new[er] players see them around a lot and want them), but rotating styles of old/new and weak/powerful is probably healthy for everyone. I've seen several people happy to fuse up an old, poor card that they won in events long ago.
I vote Picard-gate-2: Wrath of DB.
I'm a sucker for sequels.
I vote for starting to re-run Megas starting with the Mirror Picard Mega: Picardgate III: The Search for my 15th copy of Mirror Picard
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
Is that the one I made back then? Or a new one?
For comparison purposes:
I think it might be!!!!!!
I wouldn't say Mirror Picard is a Crowd Pleaser.
― Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman and Samurai
He was the Recurring. Four copies for making like 25 K in each Event. Then they mailed out a copy to everyone over {IIRC} the Mirror Troi Event problem. Many of us who had him had already cited or spent actual folding cashy money on the fifth Star......
He was not the 5* in a single Event. So, top 1000 did not affect getting him. Just for clarification.
C'Est Moi said Lancelot, entering stage right........
DB doesn't want to maximize player satisfaction. If they did they would offer a fourth copy of the 4* in threshold, increase the odds on all packs, and block all immortalized beholds.
DB wants to maximize long term revenue. Player satisfaction is a part of that, but it also contains a lot more.
Will featuring a card a lot of people have FF decrease sales? Probably, but by how much? People have already said they will buy the campaign for the citation and other features.
Will featuring a recent pack only card decrease sales on future packs? Probably, some people will say, "why should I spend money chasing this pack now when the card will show up in a campaign soon".
How much will a good common card sell in a campaign vs an average rare card?
How much will any of that happen? I have no idea. How much will the pack sales offset the campaign sales? I have no idea, either. But DB wants to figure that all out. That's what they're trying here. They'll see how it works and adjust campaigns in the future.
But just assuming that DB needs to make the most number of players happy will never be the right answer.
It’s hard to plan ahead, though, and that’s why I believe that having strong 5* crew offered in Campaigns won’t have an effect on pack sales. DB knows (or should know) what they’re doing weeks or months in advance but we don’t and shouldn’t expect any such foreknowledge...to look at an event and say “I’m not going to try for a top rank because I bet that card will be in a campaign in a few months” would be incredibly foolish.
Do I think a top-10 or top-20 voyager will ever be in a campaign? Probably not. But I wouldn’t entirely rule it out either if they want to have a temporary boost in sales...
PicardGate 2: Electric Boogaloo
PicardGate 2: Picard Harder
PicardGate 2: The Wrath of Whales
I am sure I could come up with others.
I bought 2 Pocks
The point of campaigns I believe from DB's point of view are to try to get F2P and casual small spenders to start spending money or to spend more money. It is to tempt them into paying $10 a month to get a 5/5 legendary or a 4/5 legendary and a citation along with the other stuff. To get people who do not usually spend or do not spend much to start plunking down $10 a month. Picking two crew that many people already have works against that plan. I am a casual small spender. I had been buying the campaigns. DB was getting $10 extra from me each month. They will not be getting that $10 this month from me. They would have gotten $10 from me if it was another Picard legendary. Simple as that.
Good summary of the intent of the Campaign Premium Track, as I see it. People who do have $10 to get a 5* FFed plus all that other stuff, might be more likely to do it, instead of a 1* for $10 plus a lot less extra stuff......
woah, that's like megagate man, far out.
I smell memegate