Character Rotations For Season VIII

brisashi

This is both frustrating and discouraging.

I have waited over a year for certain characters to be fixed or even given a proper third ability, and now they are removed completely for who knows how many weeks or months to make room for new characters. Please stop inteoducing new characters and fix the ones we have earned.

This feels punishing.

CrookedKnight

If vaulting characters "allows you to work on them out of the spotlight," then (a) for the love of God, vault Sentry, how in the name of itty-bitty cats has this still not happened; and (b) why are you vaulting a character who just got rebalanced?!

Xiltyn

ElectroBlast wrote:

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


Great news - we're finally going to add the new characters to the comic packs.

Going forward, new characters are going to rotate into the comic packs in sync with Versus seasons. New characters will be added into the packs, and older characters will be given some time out of the packs. As a result, we'll be getting all the new characters into the packs without reducing the rates of any of the 3 and 4 stars, so your character progress won't slow down.

Our first rotation will happen on October 17th with Season 7.

In: Beast, Captain Marvel, Colossus, Deadpool, Doctor Octopus, She-Hulk
Out: Daredevil, Doctor Doom, Human Torch (Classic), Loki, Ragnarok, Wolverine (Patch), Punisher

The first characters that are taken out of packs will start rotating back in during Season 8. We'll always communicate in advance which characters will be rotating out.

This will put the latest characters into the packs sooner and allow us to work on the characters that are out of the spotlight.

Thanks and keep the feedback coming!

UPDATE: Some folks asked about She-Hulk. Thanks for catching that. I added her to the list above. She-Hulk is getting added to the heroic packs. She is already in the event packs.

So, returning when?

Unknown

I guess I will vault my rewards until at least Punisher is back in. I don't want the new characters. Considering how long it took me to get 12 covers of Punisher, I'm not interested in dumping Iso-8 in any of the newer characters. Btw, I collected 18 tokens (11 Standard, 6 Heroic and 1 event token) waiting for this anouncement after Season 7 ended. Seeing they are vaulting LThor and CMags as well and not returning any of the previously vaulted characters, I opened them. Zero 3* covers. I will continue to open till this rotation is in effect.

Demiurge_Will

Ben Grimm wrote:

Any chance of rotating Bullseye out at some point in the future to give him a third power? He's the only two-skill 2* left.

There's a good chance of Bullseye getting a third power at some point, though not soon.

While rotating characters gives us a nice opportunity to make changes and present them cleanly when the character returns, characters don't have to be rotated out to get changes. You can expect fixes and balance changes to characters in rotation as well as those out of rotation.

Unknown

So Daredevil, Doctor Doom, Human Torch (Classic), Loki, Ragnarok, Wolverine (Patch), Punisher, LThor and CMags are all going to be vaulted at the same time?

I have all but Loki max covered, and of all these I only want to respec CMags to 355 (the 445 is totally playable though). So this doesn't really bother or affect me, but this list doesn't make much sense to me. I get the 2 cover 3*s, they should be worked on to add a third power. I get Daredevil, as he really can use work. I sort of get Patch and Punisher as they are balanced, but many have them maxed as they were featured quite a bit (although I still think having them for transitioning characters would be a better thing).

CMags has already been in the shop for some time, and I know he wasn't featured for huge stretches during that time. He is now pretty well balanced in a vacuum. Sure his red when combined with X-Forces Black do rediculous things, but it wasn't like anyone was running around with CMags post nerf, until Surgical Strike became what it became. But it isn't like you see him with anyone else. I would guess many people want and need those covers, so it seems odd to pull him away.

LThor is not exactly dominating high end play. He is a frieght train, and can do a ton of damage, but takes a bit of time to get going. The fact he isn't all over the place on the teams 800+ should tell you he is fairly balanced. But he is the sort of character that is perfect for a transitioning character. He works just like his 2* counterpart. Can get you into the 600-700 range pretty easily can can scare away some of the late climbers with his health at the very least. Also from what I remember, people still were going hard for his covers in the last PvP he was a prize.

I would think Psylocke, Falcon or Steve Rogers would be a better fit for the garage. Psylocke's Blue certainly can use some tweaking, and while the other two are fairly balanced, I don't see people going crazy for Falcon or Rogers rewards. I know I personally have gotten Rogers rewards often enough that I must have sold a complete second set of his covers.

I would love to see a dev diary on how these characters get selected for the shelf. I would have guessed it was based on supply/demand plus need to tweak powersets, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this set.

orbitalint

KevinMark wrote:

Btw, I collected 18 tokens (11 Standard, 6 Heroic and 1 event token) waiting for this anouncement after Season 7 ended...I opened them. Zero 3* covers. I will continue to open till this rotation is in effect.

So, I don't know that I would've expected any more than 1 3* out of that assortment of tokens. I go weeks where I don't see a 3* in a standard and probably a good 30 pulls of a heroic before a 3*. Sucks but doesn't sound all that out of the norm.

mohio

So I kind of understand why people are a little upset about losing a chance to get your favorite or currently most covered characters, but hear me out for a minute and let me tell you why this is not that big of a deal. First, the chances of you pulling the one guy you need most out of a token over one full season (so that's 4 weeks of tokens) is not very large. Second, the devs are basically telling us that they've planned out the rewards for the next 12 pvp and 3-4 pve and they were not going to offer any of the vaulted characters as rewards or feature them in events. So, wouldn't you like to build up the characters that are actually going to be featured over the next month? Now just about any lucky token pull will go towards a character you're definitely going to use soon, even if just for their featured event.

Edit: to add one more thing. You guys are gonna have to get used to this. I don't know all the numbers exactly off the top of my head but let's say there are 29 3* currently in the game and they want to keep only 20 in the token pool. Well guess what? At a new (3*) character every 2 weeks, that means in about 5 more months there will be just as many characters vaulted as there are available. And every new season will bring 2 additional characters into the vault to add the 2 newest ones. Not passing judgment on whether this is good for the game or not, but we have to get used to it, at least until they figure out a better plan (or decide to try any of the several good ideas put forth already by this here forum).

Unknown

I'm never going to get a black HT cover. Good lord.

Really glad we have the chance to get more Mystique covers, though - you must have gotten all my letters, D3!

Unknown

I'm hoping that some of the vaulted characters are reworked to incorporate new game features, since Torch Thor Doom Ragnarok Loki & Magneto could easily have the Charged Tile mechanic added to at least one of their skills.

It still seems unclear whether the Season 7 vaulted characters are returning to the token pool at the start of season 8 or will remain vaulted until season 9. I really miss having Patch, Punisher or Torch boosted in PVE (especially brutal Heroics)

Demiurge_Will

GuiltTrip wrote:

I would love to see a dev diary on how these characters get selected for the shelf. I would have guessed it was based on supply/demand plus need to tweak powersets, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this set.

Thanks for the question, GuiltTrip. The shorter-than-a-dev-diary answer: we're looking to give each set of in-rotation characters a good mix of color strengths, enough easily-recognized faces, enough villains to support the Villainous lightning rounds and the Sentry episode, a range of simpler to more complex characters, a range of mechanics, representation from lots of different corners of the Marvel universe, and some interesting match-ups and synergies. And if a character has been around for a few seasons and isn't seeing use, they're more likely to be rotated out for a tune-up. We also want to make sure characters are in the rotation for the first run of a story event where they play a part.

Not everyone who gets rotated out will be changed while they're out. Most 3* characters will be rotated out and return at some point in the lifetime of the game, whether or not they could benefit from changes (we've got no current plans to make changes to Thor (Modern) or Magneto (Classic) while they're out of packs, for example).

GrimSkald

Demiurge_Will wrote:

GuiltTrip wrote:

I would love to see a dev diary on how these characters get selected for the shelf. I would have guessed it was based on supply/demand plus need to tweak powersets, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this set.

Thanks for the question, GuiltTrip. The shorter-than-a-dev-diary answer: we're looking to give each set of in-rotation characters a good mix of color strengths, enough easily-recognized faces, enough villains to support the Villainous lightning rounds and the Sentry episode, a range of simpler to more complex characters, a range of mechanics, representation from lots of different corners of the Marvel universe, and some interesting match-ups and synergies. And if a character has been around for a few seasons and isn't seeing use, they're more likely to be rotated out for a tune-up. We also want to make sure characters are in the rotation for the first run of a story event where they play a part.

Not everyone who gets rotated out will be changed while they're out. Most 3* characters will be rotated out and return at some point in the lifetime of the game, whether or not they could benefit from changes (we've got no current plans to make changes to Thor (Modern) or Magneto (Classic) while they're out of packs, for example).

Thank you for the answer. I still think that if this system is going to in any way alleviate the burden of having too many characters, the rotation needs to be a large number of characters going both in and out each season. Small changes, like this, simply exclude these characters from the newer players, which I can't imagine is a desired effect.

I'll also add that Patch and Human Torch have not been awarded in a PVP since July and August, respectively, which make them the two characters who have not been awarded in the longest time (currently.) I suspect the Hulk had a larger gap in his awards, but still, this does not lend itself for people being able to complete them. By comparison, in the time where w haven't seen a single Patch or HT cover, we've seen awards for Storm (Mohawk) four times...

Unknown

orbitalint wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Btw, I collected 18 tokens (11 Standard, 6 Heroic and 1 event token) waiting for this anouncement after Season 7 ended...I opened them. Zero 3* covers. I will continue to open till this rotation is in effect.

So, I don't know that I would've expected any more than 1 3* out of that assortment of tokens. I go weeks where I don't see a 3* in a standard and probably a good 30 pulls of a heroic before a 3*. Sucks but doesn't sound all that out of the norm.

Yeah, it didn't feel like I should get one just yet while I was opening them.

KevinMark wrote:

I guess I will vault my rewards until at least Punisher is back in. I don't want the new characters. Considering how long it took me to get 12 covers of Punisher, I'm not interested in dumping Iso-8 in any of the newer characters.

I checked my roster. I can still use some BP, Hood, LCap, GSBW, IM40 (not really) and Hulk covers after this rotation is in effect. I changed my mind about vaulting my rewards. Those are at level 104 apart from Hulk who is level 91. If I draw a new character, I guess it will help with featured PvEs. I succumbed to your changes D3P For some reason I still don't have a single Falcon cover. I think he is cool. I hope I get one soon. There is still a problem though. My next roster slot costs 600 HP. I wish they made a permanent discount on those while fixing the cost instead of increasing it progressively.

My current roster: http://imgur.com/a/iavP2#0

dkffiv

mohio wrote:

So I kind of understand why people are a little upset about losing a chance to get your favorite or currently most covered characters, but hear me out for a minute and let me tell you why this is not that big of a deal. First, the chances of you pulling the one guy you need most out of a token over one full season (so that's 4 weeks of tokens) is not very large. Second, the devs are basically telling us that they've planned out the rewards for the next 12 pvp and 3-4 pve and they were not going to offer any of the vaulted characters as rewards or feature them in events. So, wouldn't you like to build up the characters that are actually going to be featured over the next month? Now just about any lucky token pull will go towards a character you're definitely going to use soon, even if just for their featured event.

If one of the currently vaulted characters (who the player has partially covered) were to be featured in an upcoming PvP and PvE you would both be building up a character for those events as well as completing one that will allow you to do better in PvP in general. If one of the new characters were featured they would probably not be worth wasting ISOs on (other than Blade or Deadpool. I'm on the fence about Mystique). I leveled Colossus a bit last heroic and am still regretting it due to how bad he is.

I need 2 Dr. Doom and 2 Daredevil covers to complete every character who is currently vaulted so I don't particularly care, but for my alliancemates who are going from 2* to 3* this is a kick in the balls. I use Thor/Torch/Punisher/Patch/CMag a lot in PvE (Cmag especially), I almost never touch Hulk or Spider-man (IM40 is used occasionally for his yellow though I admit he is a very situational pick). Of the new characters, if they were fully leveled (which mine are not) I would probably not use Colossus, She-Hulk, Marvel or Beast. Doc Oc seems like he's probably terrible too but I would at least give him some tries on Daken or goon nodes. Storm seems too squishy to be viable and her covers were given out like candy the last month or two so she would be a fine candidate for vaulting too.

Unknown

Hi devs, Ragnarok is out, can we expect his third ability when he come back?

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

GuiltTrip wrote:

I would love to see a dev diary on how these characters get selected for the shelf. I would have guessed it was based on supply/demand plus need to tweak powersets, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this set.

Thanks for the question, GuiltTrip. The shorter-than-a-dev-diary answer: we're looking to give each set of in-rotation characters a good mix of color strengths, enough easily-recognized faces, enough villains to support the Villainous lightning rounds and the Sentry episode, a range of simpler to more complex characters, a range of mechanics, representation from lots of different corners of the Marvel universe, and some interesting match-ups and synergies. And if a character has been around for a few seasons and isn't seeing use, they're more likely to be rotated out for a tune-up. We also want to make sure characters are in the rotation for the first run of a story event where they play a part.

Not everyone who gets rotated out will be changed while they're out. Most 3* characters will be rotated out and return at some point in the lifetime of the game, whether or not they could benefit from changes (we've got no current plans to make changes to Thor (Modern) or Magneto (Classic) while they're out of packs, for example).

Phone acting up, can't seem to pare down the comment but...Prodigal Sun confirmed for pve again soon.

Unknown

dearbluey wrote:

Phone acting up, can't seem to pare down the comment but...Prodigal Sun confirmed for pve again soon.

That is how I read that as well. I also think it hints towards a X-Men centered event as well (which is why Beast and Mohawk Storm have survived the vaulting), but we shall see.

dkffiv

GuiltTrip wrote:

dearbluey wrote:

Phone acting up, can't seem to pare down the comment but...Prodigal Sun confirmed for pve again soon.

That is how I read that as well. I also think it hints towards a X-Men centered event as well (which is why Beast and Mohawk Storm have survived the vaulting), but we shall see.

Beast is new and Mohawk is relatively new. If there were to be an X-Men event why would Patch not be available (as most transition players do not have XForce)

Unknown

.... this rotation thing is getting out of hand. I am a 2* to 3* transitioning player and now I won't be able to look forward to building my 6 cover HT/punisher/LThor. What a joke. I understand the rationale for "rotating"... but why cant you just split the heroic tokens into 2 different packs so that we still have a chance to pull them... (not that its likely anyway considering how drop rates are ****)

yogi_

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Most 3* characters will be rotated out and return at some point in the lifetime of the game...

This statement alone is quite concerning and could be interpreted in a lot of ways which leaves open more questions than answers.

Under this scenario, characters could be removed from the game entirely, for multiple seasons, a single season or never.

At somewhere around a third of the 3* covers out of rotation now, in the future, there could be a scenario where up to half are out. This essentially now establishes a 3* ranking (characters in the game) and a pseudo-3* ranking (out).

Meanwhile, 1* and 2* covers appear to infinity and beyond.

This really needs a clearer long term solution which is likely not possible within the current set up of the game. Given there seems to be no dev interest in making multiple token packs (which brings up a different set of more issues), a medium term suggestion would possibly be looking at rejigging character rankings by either spreading out characters more evenly into 1-4*'s, compacting them into bigger groups of 1-3*s or spreading them out further into 1-5*s. Any change would also require an adaptation as to how covers were distributed.