Collection Shiny / rift reward system can use an improvement

[Dusty00]

Issue 1: Rift game mode was intended to be, at least at the time of 1.0, for end game players with a wide and varied collection. The rewards from rift (Rift coins, relic shards, and keys) provide resources for player progression. There is a bit of contradiction here because when you’ve reached the top for long enough the rewards no longer appeal to end game players other than the top3 title for a week.

Issue 2: Shiny variants are rare and luck base. For a game where collection is one of the core attractions for the player base, not only does 100% RNG for obtaining shiny make users s when seeing others get lucky, it also does not add any motivation factor from playing the game more.

Conclusion: End-game players or those who primarily focus on the collection aspect of the game need a different/new reason to keep playing.

Ideas
1. Restructure rift rewards so that diamond tier rewards focuses on cosmetic and fame aspects rather than resources for progression and character growth. I have 28,546 rift coins and 52 diamond keys just sitting there, and I know others like Keith has over 80k rift coins. When you’ve been in diamond and above for long enough those rewards are no longer useful. Rift rewards would be more meaningful if structured like the following:

Top3 will acquire, same amount of resources as diamond ranks, but in addition permanent flairs (by season) that they can show off in their profile or guild related functions. Maybe they give a small bonus to guild members for that week. They also get a good chunk of currency for making shiny variants (see below) that allows them to work on their shiny catalogue.

D1-2 can earn a decent chunk of shiny resources and the usual diamond rewards.

D3-4 can earn 2 diamond keys instead of 1, because these guys are still trying to grow their collection to have a more competitive edge to take on the top 50. They also earn a small amount of shiny resources.

G1-2 can earn 1 diamond key instead of 2 golds and the usual. No shiny resources given to gold and below because their priority is on growing their catalogue, not a shiny collection.

G3 and below can keep the current structure.

Better yet, let players choose between option A or B of end of week rift rewards so they can focus either on growing their collection strength or cosmetic+fame depending on their needs. Diamond keys or Shiny shards, but not both.

2. Make shiny variants more obtainable, not only through luck. A new currency similar to relic shards that allows players to slowly earn over time. This lets those of us with full or near-full catalogue players have a goal to set and achieve.

1000 of shiny shards + fodders lets you convert a normal to shiny. This also helps us have more uses with extra fodders. Maybe something like 5 Primed Parasoul + Shiny essence produces one shiny Primed. 5 random fodders of the same tier (bronze, silver, gold, diamond) + Shiny essence will produce a random shiny variant from that tier. Talk about another way to put the hundreds of gold fodders and dupe diamonds to use instead of creating yet another tier (platinum? Mystic?) to the game.

Edit: Missed the opportunity to say the shiny shards concept can be applied to have a resource that allows us to reset gold moves. Got a 3/3 move that mostly rolled into def instead or HP? Use it to reset to level 1. It’s insanely expensive but for end game players it’s all about min/max and some will sell an organ to get 200% atk.

TL DR - end game players don’t have clear long term goals and shiny variants are 100% RNG. Add a new resource in the game that provides players a new kind of goal to work towards as well as making shiny variants more obtainable. Reward system should provide options/choices so players can choose depending on their needs.

 

[You cant beat D]

I'm going to be honest, i don't agree with the shiny thing, shinies are meant to be a rare luck based thing, and currently, i think they're fine the way they are. (except for us not knowing the odds)
as for rift rewards in their current state, i can't really vouch for that either, 3 years playing, I'm super late into the game, placing consistent d2 (never d1) and still find myself going broke on diamond keys and rift coins, in which said coins are used on sp, essence, and the likes to continue building the duplicate fighters i need to even be in d1 consistently.

 

[AwsomeTheMyth]

Shinies are basically the cheat code of the game.
They just cut your effort in half, allowing you build gamebreaking variants at faster rate with little to no difficulty, to new players it won't be a problem but for old time players it feels like a kick to the face after the amount of BS you had to deal with.
I do like the crafting system you suggested tho, but if they add another rarity that's just extremely stupid and makes diamond grind extremely pointless.

 

[Lililira]

Not sure I agree with a way of earning shinies, but definitely agree that something needs to change about their drop rates, especially since they currently seem to be *broken* for golds and diamonds.



I've been tracking shiny odds for a while now, and here's what we have currently: Thread Link

Shiny Odds​

We were told when shinies first released that each rarity had different odds of being shiny, so each rarity is tracked separately. We were also told that all fighters have a chance of being shiny, regardless of how they were obtained (Premiere relics, Rarity relics, CoC, PF rewards, etc.)

	Total	Shinies	Calculated Odds
Bronze	711	4	0.56%
Silver	350	5	1.43%
Gold	244	1	0.41%
Diamond	42	0	0.00%
Total	1347	10

Note: some close approximate values added in.

We were also told these things about shinies in the patch notes for their release: Thread Link

SHINY FIGHTERS

Also arriving in 4.2 - SHINY FIGHTERS! Shiny Fighters are extremely rare versions of Fighters which sparkle during combat and on all UI screens.

[snipped]​

You can find a Shiny Fighter from any source that grants Fighters. This includes Relics, the Cabinet of Curiosities, In-Game Mail (such as Prize Fight rewards), and so on.

Note that when claiming Fighters from the Cabinet of Curiosities or Mail, the Fighter will only have a chance to become Shiny AS you claim them. (Ex: You won't see Shiny effects on the Cabinet of Curiosities Fighters before you buy them.)

[snipped]

Lastly, the odds of finding a Shiny Fighter are increased the higher the rarity the Fighter is. That means your odds of finding a Diamond Shiny are much higher than your odds of finding a Bronze Shiny, because you won't be acquiring Diamond Fighters as quickly as Bronzes!

​

[snipped out sentences not relating to their odds]

However, based on the data, one or more of the statements shown above must be wrong.


At this point, I've gotten enough Gold data to consider what I have to be statistically sound, as even though we only have 1 Gold Shiny on record, the following statement *should* be true if everything is working as intended: "Lastly, the odds of finding a Shiny Fighter are increased the higher the rarity the Fighter is."

But it's not.

The on-record odds for Gold shinies is currently lower than, not just the Silver odds, but the Bronze odds as well.

And these Gold odds are even out of date, as for the last few month have been tracking every single Gold drop I've received via every possible methods (pf rewards, random pulls, gold relics, etc), and haven't taken the time to add them in for quite a while.


Assuming that all statements made in the release post are the way things are intended to be, Shiny odds are currently *broken* for higher rarities, and there's some kind of bug or design flaw that's responsible.

Something is seriously wrong here, and it needs to be looked at.


But, unless we gather some more data, we won't know how exactly. I have my suspicions though, and I *highly* encourage everyone reading to submit a screenshot of their full shiny collection to my tracking thread here: Thread Link