DISCUSSION - New Characters in Comic Packs

CrookedKnight

IIRC they've said before that the entire reason this is a dilemma is because there's no way to fit every 3* character into tokens with a halfway-decent chance to find any individual cover unless you rejigger the base 2*/3*/4* odds, which (implicitly) isn't an option.

Unknown

If 4*'s are the new 3*'s; then it's not more free stuff. It's an adjustment as a result of the new meta.

scottee

I know people have a hard time thinking through consequences, but increasing 3* drop rate does have some. It's not just YOU that get more 3*'s; it's EVERYONE that gets more 3*'s.

That means more players with maxed out 166's, which means more 166's pooled at the top of the rankings. You'd see walls of 166's earlier. You'd see the top 100 or even 200 filled with 166's.

Maxed 166's are really still the end game right now. 4*'s aren't that significant of an upgrade. If everyone had 166's, EVERY aspect would be a huge grind.

This is already an area that they haven't addressed, and which I don't know if they're aware of. The only way to unclog the eventual cluster kitty at the max 3* range is to continue to open up the 4* range as a viable tier. And I'm not sure if that's in their plans.

FierceKiwi

stephen43084 wrote:

If 4*'s are the new 3*'s; then it's not more free stuff. It's an adjustment as a result of the new meta.

Except 4*s aren't the new 3*s...that might be the long term solution to release more of them and make the 4* transition a real thing and start handing out 3*s like candy but right now it doesn't make much sense. When they get to 10 or so 4*s at least half of which being viable you might see an increase in 3* drop rates but not now.

Unknown

scottee wrote:

I know people have a hard time thinking through consequences, but increasing 3* drop rate does have some. It's not just YOU that get more 3*'s; it's EVERYONE that gets more 3*'s.

That means more players with maxed out 166's, which means more 166's pooled at the top of the rankings. You'd see walls of 166's earlier. You'd see the top 100 or even 200 filled with 166's.

Maxed 166's are really still the end game right now. 4*'s aren't that significant of an upgrade. If everyone had 166's, EVERY aspect would be a huge grind.

This is already an area that they haven't addressed, and which I don't know if they're aware of. The only way to unclog the eventual cluster kitty at the max 3* range is to continue to open up the 4* range as a viable tier. And I'm not sure if that's in their plans.

I said increase odds, not give out like candy. In talking a few percentage points.

Plus, covers are nothing without iso any way.

FierceKiwi

Increasing by a few percentage points doesn't really solve the problem though if you take one percentage point and devide it by the 27? 3* you get no real change if you take 10 and divide it amongst all the characters you still barely move the needle on individual covers and you buy at most a few months as more 3* get released and drop the percentages again.

scottee

stephen43084 wrote:

scottee wrote:

I know people have a hard time thinking through consequences, but increasing 3* drop rate does have some. It's not just YOU that get more 3*'s; it's EVERYONE that gets more 3*'s.

That means more players with maxed out 166's, which means more 166's pooled at the top of the rankings. You'd see walls of 166's earlier. You'd see the top 100 or even 200 filled with 166's.

Maxed 166's are really still the end game right now. 4*'s aren't that significant of an upgrade. If everyone had 166's, EVERY aspect would be a huge grind.

This is already an area that they haven't addressed, and which I don't know if they're aware of. The only way to unclog the eventual cluster kitty at the max 3* range is to continue to open up the 4* range as a viable tier. And I'm not sure if that's in their plans.

I said increase odds, not give out like candy. In talking a few percentage points.

Plus, covers are nothing without iso any way.

The devs thought "a few percentage points" when they started sharding. And it led to the horribly deathy death brackets.

The amount of 3* covers they release and the amount of iso that can be earned are the two ways they regulate how fast the average player progresses.

I maintain my statement. Every "easy solution" the forum comes up with has consequences. 166's used to only populate the top 5 of a PVP (1%). Then top 10 (2%). Now what is it, top 25? (5%). A higher and higher percentage of the player base has maxed out 166's, and that percentage will only go up. "A few percentage points" isn't about starting a trend; it's about snowballing an already existing one.

Unknown

If the chance of getting a 3* is 1/6 and there are only 10 3*s, it's still on average 60 tokens to get any particular 3* you're looking for and on average 180 tokens to get any particular 3* cover you're looking for.

Even ignoring any unintended conseuqences of making 3* more abundant, it still wouldn't matter because you don't build a team in this game by taking the 3 random 3*s you happen to have the most cover due to a significant lack of balance.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Grizzlegom wrote:

So what is the reasoning against simply breaking up the packs in a simple manner like this:

1-Pack:
80% Chance to pull a 2*.
17.5% Chance to pull a 3*.
2.5% Chance to pull a 4*.

and just including every character at that level. Sure, when a new 3* is released, that lowers the chance of getting each 3* but you still have the same overall percent chance to pull a 3* and then you don't have to worry about people complaining that, in a certain pack, they can't get any specific character. Simply maintain the overall percentage and there really is no real drawbacks. You still have PVE/PVP featured events where that particular character has a boosted chance to drop.

As the rate at which you get any one particular 3* gets lower and lower, it takes longer and longer to collect all three of their abilities, or to get enough covers that they can outperform your 2*s. If all of the new 3* characters and all of the old ones were readily available, without other changes, the duration of the 2*-3* transition would increase by a couple months for a typical player, and that would continue to grow as more characters get added.

Not really though as the odds of getting a 3* would remain constant and the odds of getting any particular character also remains constant in that you will always have the same % chance to pull Beast, Deadpool, Spider-Man, or Daredevil. At the end of the day, the best way to obtain any cover/character is ALWAYS going to be to get them when they are a reward or are featured, and therefore you have higher odds of pulling that character. The generic Heroic pack should be promoting fairness to all players.

When a new character is first released, its pretty easy for veteran players to get two of each cover right away by finishing top 5/10 in the PVE and PVP. That character is then "featured" in another PVP and PVE, allowing higher odds to obtain that character in the packs. After that, the character should then enter the pool and have the same rate as every other character at its rarity level because that keeps things constant and fair for all players. The manner in which you are swapping characters out makes it nice for veteran players who have been around since the beginning that only need the new characters but it hurts newer players that needs covers for a character that's rotating out. There has already been multiple people posting in this thread that they are thisclose from finishing Patch or PunPun. I know I'm ~2 covers away for almost all the characters rotating out. Continuously keeping all characters in the packs at least gives them the chance to always pull a character and makes every character have the same basic odds. In general, that's the most "fair" approach to show you are not catering to any particular audience. Truthfully, I think this should absolutely apply to the base Standard and basic Heroic tokens packs. I have no issues with catering event tokens in this manner where some characters are or aren't included.

Unknown

To further the point, I get what you are saying in that, if there were 4 3*'s and now there's 5, I went from having a 1 in 12 chance of pulling any particular cover to now a 1 in 15 chance. However, what I'm saying is that the chances of pulling any cover in relation to another cover remains constant (still have the same overall chance of getting a Red Deadpool or a Yellow Spider-Man, even if the number went from 1 in 12 to 1 in 15).

I do think there is a place for pulling characters out of some packs, though and to me, that's where the event tokens would come in. I would think the best way to do it would be something along the lines of this; If it's a Colossus event, the token would be an X-Men token instead of a generic token and then when you redeem it, only the X-Men are in the pack. You could logically break down all the characters into different groups. Heroes, Villains, X-Men, Avengers, Marvel Knights, Spider Friends, F4, etc etc.

Demiurge_Will

CrookedKnight wrote:

IIRC they've said before that the entire reason this is a dilemma is because there's no way to fit every 3* character into tokens with a halfway-decent chance to find any individual cover unless you rejigger the base 2*/3*/4* odds, which (implicitly) isn't an option.

Yeah, that's right.

A couple of comments in this thread have asked why we don't just increase the rate at which we give out 3* characters. The reasons are more complicated and subtle than why we can't keep adding characters at the same total 3* odds, and it's kind of game design inside baseball, but if you're interested in this sort of thing, here goes:

If I can earn 3* characters faster, it makes the experience worse in two ways: 1) for 2* players, 2* characters become harder to get covers for, and 2) the pace of rewards slows down too fast.

1) is pretty straightforward, but 2) requires some more explanation.

A huge part of whether or not an RPG is fun and satisfying comes from the interlocking rhythms of rewards. In a game with an ongoing life like MPQ, one that I can play as a hobby for a really long time, because there isn't infinite stuff, the rate at which I get interesting new things necessarily slows down as I progress. The shape of that curve of cool new stuff vs. time is really important. Getting more 3*s sooner makes that curve steeper - it causes me to completely skip over a chunk of the 2* game and hop into the slower-paced 3* game sooner. In a sense, there would be less total fun in the game.

As the game evolves,that reward curve can get a little steeper and accelerate people's progress into later parts of the game and be okay. For example, that happened with the 1*->2* portion of the game when characters were added to the Versus mission rewards. But that needs to keep pace with how the power cap in the game rises, quite slowly, or I hit the wall too soon.

A common mistake among inexperienced designers is to believe that giving out more stuff faster, making the numbers go up faster, will make the game more fun. We've all had the experience of a sudden increase in power being really exciting and fun, and we generalize from that and think faster is better. But actually that sudden increase is only fun because of its suddenness relative to the shape of the power curve on either side.

Sort of related, but not quite the same thing: giving out 3*s more liberally lowers the value of a 3* and the excitement of getting one. The value of everything in a game is related to how scarce things of comparable power are.

mohio

I skipped part of this thread so not sure if this has been discussed at all, but has anyone said anything about 4* characters? I know there are not that many currently, so maybe the odds are not quite near their minimum, but once another 1 or 2 more 4* get added it seems like their odds will drop pretty far. Will 4* then be treated the same way as these 3* and they will take turns rotating out?

Also, to the devs - is this meant to be a final solution or will you continue to brainstorm different ideas? For now it seems like a good solution, but 6 months from now when there are as many 3* "out" as there are "in" it might be kind of awkward and frustrating that some characters may be in limbo for 2+ seasons at a time.

Unknown

mohio wrote:

I skipped part of this thread so not sure if this has been discussed at all, but has anyone said anything about 4* characters? I know there are not that many currently, so maybe the odds are not quite near their minimum, but once another 1 or 2 more 4* get added it seems like their odds will drop pretty far. Will 4* then be treated the same way as these 3* and they will take turns rotating out?

Also, to the devs - is this meant to be a final solution or will you continue to brainstorm different ideas? For now it seems like a good solution, but 6 months from now when there are as many 3* "out" as there are "in" it might be kind of awkward and frustrating that some characters may be in limbo for 2+ seasons at a time.

Seems like X Force is going to be rotated out for Thor? He's not available in the anniversary pack which has Devil Dino.

FierceKiwi

I don't think you can determine anything about 4* future availablity from the anniversary packs since there's also only 6 2*s in there and it seems unlikely they'll do any vaulting there (other than keeping Bags locked in there). If I had to guess they'd only start to worry about the odds if they get about 5 of 6 4* released (that'd but their odds somewhere in the vacinity of 1/2 a 3* which seems reasonable?).

Unknown

FierceKiwi wrote:

I don't think you can determine anything about 4* future availablity from the anniversary packs since there's also only 6 2*s in there and it seems unlikely they'll do any vaulting there (other than keeping Bags locked in there). If I had to guess they'd only start to worry about the odds if they get about 5 of 6 4* released (that'd but their odds somewhere in the vacinity of 1/2 a 3* which seems reasonable?).

The 4* already start out with a low number though so the impact can be quite significant. Let's say there's a 3% chance to get a 4* (this seems to be odds for the 10-pack so it's high in general because people can't just buy 10-packs all the time). Currently we have Nick Fury, X Force, and IW on 4* so each of them is just 1% and it'd take 100 tokens on average to get any particular 4* you're looking for. If we added a 4th character, say Thor 4*, now it drops down to 0.75% and now it goes up to 133.3 tokens on average for any particular 4*. The dilution effect is far greater because there are only 3 4*s to begin with, but more importantly, 100 tokens is already an insane number of tokens and adding even a small amount (and 33 is not small) can easily mean you'll never get the 4* you're looking for. Sure, your chance of getting a 4* is still unchanged, but people aren't just looking for random 4*s.

FierceKiwi

It's much less of an issue though not being able to get a wanted 4* since there really isn't a 4* transition (the 4* right now are just glorified 3*) at the moment and it should take ages to complete. Also the idea that I have a better chance of pulling X-Force than Patch is absurd (the current solution won't increase 3* odds so letting 4* odds fall seems reasonable).

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

If I can earn 3* characters faster, it makes the experience worse in two ways: 1) for 2* players, 2* characters become harder to get covers for, and 2) the pace of rewards slows down too fast.

1) is pretty straightforward, but 2) requires some more explanation.

1) is not true to any relevant degree. If you are a player in the 1*->2* transition, or a 2* player looking to expand/complete his 2* roster, you play a few nodes in several PvP events, hit some seed teams in LRs, or play a bit in the current season's SHIELD simulator. You shouldn't be relying on heroic tokens for 2* covers, because they are quite rare compared to the PvP node drops of 2* covers. You might pick up a few from progression rewards in either PvP or PvE events, though fixed 2* rewards will also be a relatively small percentage of your needed 2* covers.

Restricting the flow of 3* covers to a constant rate over time is a perfectly legitimate rationale in itself. It doesn't need the support of bad arguments.

Veteran players have anticipated the 3* cover glut within standard/heroic tokens for almost a year now, which is why we've brainstormed a long list of solutions, some of which are much better than vaulting characters and even maintain an equivalent flow rate of 3* covers. My preferred solution would be to split up heroic tokens into Heroic A/Heroic B/Heroic C/Heroic D tokens. Each would have the same overall percentage 2*/3*/4* split as the current heroic token, but A would have Sentry/Patch/Loki/Daredevil/etc., B would have Daken/Captain America/Punisher/Doctor Doom/etc., C would have The Hood/The Hulk/Black Panther/Doctor Octopus/etc., and D would have Thor/Magneto/Psylocke/She-Hulk/etc.. Whenever a player would get a heroic token, he could choose A/B/C/D for the random draw. 2*s could be split 4 ways or have all in each token; PvP node drops would still be the expected source of most 2* covers. 4*s could be split or not; most 4* covers are probably going to come from high-end progression or placement rewards anyway. Each new 3* could be added to the current least-popular token, since measuring that would be trivial and would cause the tokens to rotate naturally in popularity.

In the event that the number of 3* characters overwhelms a four-way split, the tokens could be reconfigured to a six-way split, or more. The overall rate of 3* cover flow wouldn't change, but players would be able to do a limited amount of self-selecting their 3* roster growth by choosing what part of the 3* field their random draws come from.

yogi_

Will,

"Getting more 3*s sooner makes that curve steeper - it causes me to completely skip over a chunk of the 2* game and hop into the slower-paced 3* game sooner. In a sense, there would be less total fun in the game."

With unfortunate similarities to the execution of the theoretically correct but woefully managed healing update from some months ago, this is exactly what you did when you increased the rate of 2* drops from rewards. Why bother with 1*s now, but more broadly, this had a knock on effect.

Upon their increased introduction, it made the transition from 1* to 2* too fast, in contrast to the 2* to 3* which is close to agonising at times - more characters, far less cover availability and far far more intense competion where you have newer people, the mass and the really top people fighting for the same thing.

1* covers are everywhere, 2* covers are frequent enough but the 3* have just gotten even more limited, with your stealth reward changes a little while ago. To an established player with a sizeable 1* and 2* roster, there is little to no benefit in receiving these covers over and over. Thus the continued issue about receiving 2* from tokens - we've got them already and if we need more, we just do some lightning rounds or simulator or whatever. One benefit of token availability is allowing a player to experiment and try different builds - good luck doing this with a 3*.

If you want to build a new 1* character maybe days to usable, a new 2* maybe a few weeks and you've got a few usable options, but to get anywhere with even a single 3* could be months. I've built a bunch of 2*'s, sold the equivalent of many more and almost none of their covers were from Heroic Tokens.

The underlying issue is the balance of cover distribution and this rotation model is only going to make it longer as when a 2* to 3* transitioning player might get a couple of covers for their character, they may or may not be out the next season and repeat.

The transition from 1* to 2* is like walking up one stair at a time, the transition from 2* to 3* is trying to put your leg up 3 or 4 stairs at once and pull yourself up without holding onto anything - you'll get there probably but it's uncomfortable.

The long term solution to this, is actually a complete overhaul in the way that covers and levels are managed, but within the confines of the current game, it is what it is.

SnowcaTT

ElectroBlast wrote:

See original post here: http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17494


Out: Doctor Doom, Loki, Ragnarok,

...allow us to work on the characters that are out of the spotlight.

My hope in reading this is that the three two-cover 3*'s are coming back with a 3rd cover.

DD-The-Mighty

yogi_ wrote:

Will,

"Getting more 3*s sooner makes that curve steeper - it causes me to completely skip over a chunk of the 2* game and hop into the slower-paced 3* game sooner. In a sense, there would be less total fun in the game."

With unfortunate similarities to the execution of the theoretically correct but woefully managed healing update from some months ago, this is exactly what you did when you increased the rate of 2* drops from rewards. Why bother with 1*s now, but more broadly, this had a knock on effect.

Upon their increased introduction, it made the transition from 1* to 2* too fast, in contrast to the 2* to 3* which is close to agonising at times - more characters, far less cover availability and far far more intense competion where you have newer people, the mass and the really top people fighting for the same thing.

1* covers are everywhere, 2* covers are frequent enough but the 3* have just gotten even more limited, with your stealth reward changes a little while ago. To an established player with a sizeable 1* and 2* roster, there is little to no benefit in receiving these covers over and over. Thus the continued issue about receiving 2* from tokens - we've got them already and if we need more, we just do some lightning rounds or simulator or whatever. One benefit of token availability is allowing a player to experiment and try different builds - good luck doing this with a 3*.

If you want to build a new 1* character maybe days to usable, a new 2* maybe a few weeks and you've got a few usable options, but to get anywhere with even a single 3* could be months. I've built a bunch of 2*'s, sold the equivalent of many more and almost none of their covers were from Heroic Tokens.

The underlying issue is the balance of cover distribution and this rotation model is only going to make it longer as when a 2* to 3* transitioning player might get a couple of covers for their character, they may or may not be out the next season and repeat.

The transition from 1* to 2* is like walking up one stair at a time, the transition from 2* to 3* is trying to put your leg up 3 or 4 stairs at once and pull yourself up without holding onto anything - you'll get there probably but it's uncomfortable.

The long term solution to this, is actually a complete overhaul in the way that covers and levels are managed, but within the confines of the current game, it is what it is.

Unfortunately the part that Mr Will left out was the fact that there absolutely jack all to do in this game other than jump through flaming hoops for a few measly covers. You only notice it in the 3* stage because they flood the game with them. So they will never make the acquisition rate reasonable because they've found a nice easy loop. toss out new character>recycle event>watch the players grind>??????>profit.

I really feel sorry for the poor saps who wanted to build/complete the "retired" 3*s.