A question regarding Required Characters

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Unknown
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edited November 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
Hi there!
David, IceIX or any other member of the Marvel Puzzle Quest team, this question is for you (although I'm sure the community will have their answers too...)
I understand that you can't answer every question and this one may not be high up on the importance list, but it's one that I've been wondering about for several months now.

The Question:
Is there any particular reason why there has been an ongoing theme of requiring a certain character for PvP and PvE at the same time? Either because they are max-buffed in the PvE and running a PvP at the same time, required for essential nodes or just buffed for the PvE in general while their PvP is running? That sentence got away from me there, sorry, hope it's translatable.

It seems to be happening pretty much regularly lately, so I was curious.
Please understand that I do not mean this in a trolling or inflammatory way - I'm genuinely curious as to what the developer rationale is behind it.
And please, please please, MPQ community - you're a great and passionate bunch (mob?), but I'm not looking for the Spend More On Healthpacks Conspiracy or the Lazy Devs Theory or other such overtired arguments. Feel free to weigh in, of course, but let those particular autoresponses sleep for a while, eh?

Regards,
DearBluey

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Well, they know a part of the players will like to have a competitive advantage buying the missing covers.

    That's the only reason I can think of. It's not a problem as such, because D3P needs money to develop the game.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    If you take a look at the comments by Dave on the Nefarious foe MMR discussion he specificly states they wanted to give Mystique out because she was an essential character. They make the essential characters rewards so you can do the essentials if you don't have that character and then as a byproduct they are then essential. For vets this can be annoying because unless it is a new character we already have that character and you go through health packs doing both. For transitioning players and below, it can really help in PVE to get the essential character in PVP
  • homeinvasion
    homeinvasion Posts: 415 Mover and Shaker
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    its their 'broad roster strategy'. Meanwhile Thour/ Xforce/ Nick Fury means there will only be one team going forward. Hypocrites.
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards
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    They don't want you to do well in both PvP and PvE simultaneously, they want you to focus on one or the other.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    wymtime wrote:
    If you take a look at the comments by Dave on the Nefarious foe MMR discussion he specificly states they wanted to give Mystique out because she was an essential character. They make the essential characters rewards so you can do the essentials if you don't have that character and then as a byproduct they are then essential. For vets this can be annoying because unless it is a new character we already have that character and you go through health packs doing both. For transitioning players and below, it can really help in PVE to get the essential character in PVP

    This didn't work tho because of the structure of the Simulator. Mystique was no longer essential by the time Nefarious Foes ended.

    Broadly speaking, the PvP that awards the PvE character usually runs early int he PvE so you could get a cover through PvP if you missed out on the PvE one. Their timing of events could still use work.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    wymtime wrote:
    If you take a look at the comments by Dave on the Nefarious foe MMR discussion he specificly states they wanted to give Mystique out because she was an essential character. They make the essential characters rewards so you can do the essentials if you don't have that character and then as a byproduct they are then essential. For vets this can be annoying because unless it is a new character we already have that character and you go through health packs doing both. For transitioning players and below, it can really help in PVE to get the essential character in PVP

    This didn't work tho because of the structure of the Simulator. Mystique was no longer essential by the time Nefarious Foes ended.

    Broadly speaking, the PvP that awards the PvE character usually runs early int he PvE so you could get a cover through PvP if you missed out on the PvE one. Their timing of events could still use work.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    They want to see how many times the required characters will die in a stressful environment. Balance testing, etc.

    Also, their metrics tell them that this method provides the best user experience.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    I've yet to see any pattern to required character other than that villians can never be required for heroic events (or even usable), and Psylocke has a very high chance of being required for Iso 8 Brotherhood probably because she shows up in the cutscenes. This isn't generally true, as Thor is not always required for Heroic Jugg and Spiderman is not always required for Heroic Venom, but I think Psylocke has always been a required character for Iso 8 Brotherhood.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It's because of the way they structure events after a release. The next PvE always requires the new character, and the 2nd PvP after release always rewards the covers. So theoretically if there were a 3 day PvE after a new character release, it may not actually overlap, but that's rarely the case
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    It's not just for new characters, from what I've seen.

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