3* to 4* transition for 2015.....death of the game?

lukewin

hermanbloom wrote:

lukewin wrote:

I think the devs will be disappointed with the player participation in the current PVE, as their projections probably were based on the PVE that rewarded another 4*, Thor.

I have no figures whatsoever, but my event shard has been crazy competitive all week. As mad as for 4* Thor for sure. I don't think that many fewer people are playing. If anything, due to the scaling bug making it easy for a bunch of people, I would think some people who would have normally given up by now, are carrying on.

I have no figures either. I think the amount of intense competitors will never change that much, as more people realize that PVE is their only consistent way to get 3* or better without a 3* roster, but intensity and quantity are different things. My bracket has me, GuiltTrip and Vhailorx consistently duking it out for the Top 3 positions. I have missed a few refreshes during this PVE, complete misses, not partial points due to multiple clears. During the Thor rewards PVE, complete misses of clears knocked me out of Top 5 contention. GuiltTrip currently has a 12k lead over 5th, and a 1919 pt lead over me. Only 4 of the Top 10 have any 166 characters, where I think at least 6 or 7 of the Top 10 had 166 characters in the other PVE. Between that and alliance talk, it seems a lot of the vets that grinded for Thor, are not doing the same for Elektra.

Unknown

Hmm, guess we will never know really. The Alliance chat I am seeing has all the vets piling in to get this, just like Thor.

Either way, I would be surprised if there was a big drop off from the Thor PVE. If anything we seem to be experiencing a PVP drop off, not PVE. Not sure if that is the same for other alliances.

GrumpySmurf1002

Don't see it as a big deal. Basically, I think applying future logic to current situation leads down the wrong path. It's pretty clear they have an idea of what 'balance' should look like, and will make adjustments to maintain that. This will include adjusting reward structures.

For the top end, I expect with this influx we'll see the same reward structure as current: top 50 for 4* character, 51-150 with a 3* consolation. I think a 3/2/1 cover tier in the 3* range would help please the player base, or possibly a 3* cover for alliances 101-250. I'd expect once there's enough of a 4* pool, that reward structure will move to PvP as well, but probably top 25 and 26-100 get the 3*.

As long as basic game play stays the same (i.e. match 3, collect AP, launch powers), I'll roll with the changes, whether or not I agree with them. I'm having too much fun playing. My personal hope is there are a lot more players like me than there are (a few names that don't need to be called out here).

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Don't see it as a big deal. Basically, I think applying future logic to current situation leads down the wrong path. It's pretty clear they have an idea of what 'balance' should look like, and will make adjustments to maintain that. This will include adjusting reward structures.

For the top end, I expect with this influx we'll see the same reward structure as current: top 50 for 4* character, 51-150 with a 3* consolation. I think a 3/2/1 cover tier in the 3* range would help please the player base, or possibly a 3* cover for alliances 101-250. I'd expect once there's enough of a 4* pool, that reward structure will move to PvP as well, but probably top 25 and 26-100 get the 3*.

As long as basic game play stays the same (i.e. match 3, collect AP, launch powers), I'll roll with the changes, whether or not I agree with them. I'm having too much fun playing. My personal hope is there are a lot more players like me than there are (a few names that don't need to be called out here).

sorry frustration overrun here

Hulk11

This makes zero sense. Why replicate the 4s into what 3 are, just keep adding 3s. That's all this game is worth, 4s are the max. There's no need to inflate the whole rewards system just to replicate prior results. I dunno if we are just exaggerating what was said, but certainly there is no point at all if this is the intention, 4s will eventually have no values to 5s, then 6s then 7s. Why? Why? Yes, we understand you want more money. Improve gameplay and we will pay, grindy senseless pve will not keep people going.

Phaserhawk

If they start handing out 3*'s like 2*'s then I'm okay with it because aside from X-Force, 4*'s arent that much stronger than 3*'s they really just have more hitpoints. I mean if you really look at their skills, they aren't that much better than 3*'s.

Look at 4hor, unless you have charged tiles out Smite is not a very good damage skill and striking distance isn't much of a threat unless fully covered.

Nick Fury has expense but similar damage to AP ratios of other 3 stars

Devil Dino's strength is in his health as his skills are not super threatening, but cost effective

IW is still terrible

X-Force is a little insane and he will have to be reigned in a bit, I'm not talking about the typical D3 destroying of a character, more like a hey let's mess around with the AP cost or dmg ratios before altering the character, but honestly I would have Surgical Strike do everything it does now but instead of you getting the AP from the board it's just a complete steal from the player, that would cut down on some of the ridiculousness, because if you denied a player green, you SS their X-Force with 8 green on the board you still blow up the 8 tiles but you only steal say their 3 green AP currently.

Transitiioning to 4*'s is a natural progression of the game, and if they can have the transitioning much smoother than the 2* to 3* it should be okay. Like I said as long as 3*'s are a little easier to obtain and 4*'s move into 3* achieveability like top 10 top 50 etc then I think things will be okay and for those and the ISO issue, while it costs more ISO to max a 4*, a 4* is also more useable with less ISO than a 3* because they are more dependent on covers. a 3* maxed out at 3/3/3 is much stronger than a 4* maxed out at 3/3/3

Hulk11

Phaserhawk wrote:

If they start handing out 3*'s like 2*'s then I'm okay with it because aside from X-Force, 4*'s arent that much stronger than 3*'s they really just have more hitpoints. I mean if you really look at their skills, they aren't that much better than 3*'s.

Look at 4hor, unless you have charged tiles out Smite is not a very good damage skill and striking distance isn't much of a threat unless fully covered.

Nick Fury has expense but similar damage to AP ratios of other 3 stars

Devil Dino's strength is in his health as his skills are not super threatening, but cost effective

IW is still terrible

X-Force is a little insane and he will have to be reigned in a bit, I'm not talking about the typical D3 destroying of a character, more like a hey let's mess around with the AP cost or dmg ratios before altering the character, but honestly I would have Surgical Strike do everything it does now but instead of you getting the AP from the board it's just a complete steal from the player, that would cut down on some of the ridiculousness, because if you denied a player green, you SS their X-Force with 8 green on the board you still blow up the 8 tiles but you only steal say their 3 green AP currently.

Transitiioning to 4*'s is a natural progression of the game, and if they can have the transitioning much smoother than the 2* to 3* it should be okay. Like I said as long as 3*'s are a little easier to obtain and 4*'s move into 3* achieveability like top 10 top 50 etc then I think things will be okay and for those and the ISO issue, while it costs more ISO to max a 4*, a 4* is also more useable with less ISO than a 3* because they are more dependent on covers. a 3* maxed out at 3/3/3 is much stronger than a 4* maxed out at 3/3/3

Yes but you left out the impending 5s, and how you'd need 4s to be served out as 3s. Not just getting 3s at the current rate of 2s. There's no point except to make way for 4s, which as you said are hardly better than 3s, so why push them out?

Unknown

We might as well now consider 2* the new 1*,3* the new 2* and 4* the new 3* once this happens.

wymtime

4* transition is a good thing. By getting more 4* out it makes it easier to increase the drop rate on 3* covers which in turn helps 2-3* transitioning players. The challenge is what will getting to 4* land look like. Right now it is about who is willing to buy the covers. D3 wants this transition to be harder, but what will this look like? Will top 5 in a PVP get the 4*? This will help the players who top players now, but getting consistant top 5 is very difficult and competitive. Giving 4* as alliance rewards will again promote alliance hopping and not individual placement. giving them out for top 50 PVE and then making them essential is just putting more players behind in the 2-3* transition. I am interested to see how this works out. I think a 4* transition is good and welcomed, but with the current structure of the game this will take a lot of tweaking to how players can get there. If 2 maxed 4* become the top of PVP 3* players will not be able to transition becuse they don't have the 4*.

Moral

The top 50 method of release is horrible. Based on what I saw from goddess, getting 2 cover rewards takes your 40 hour per week grind and makes it 70 hours per week.

The time you need to invest is just getting to be too much.

Unknown

I'm in the camp of getting to the point of quitting. Progression has always been slow but now that I'm staring down a ton of maxed 4*s in PVP I'm hitting the same wall I hit when I was transitioning from 2-3* over 200 days ago. And yes, as someone stated, 4* are not drastically stronger than 3* but taking on lvl 270LThor + 270XF not only slows down your match with the extra HP they share but will most likely leave your team crippled.

Also, I just have zero interest in sinking every bit of ISO I earn into one character when I can continue leveling multiple others. This "new" PVE is really going to be a turning point for me. If it's a major change to the structure of PVE like the guantlet I'll probably stick around. If it's "new" like the grindfest RR&Groot PVE then I'm done.

SnowcaTT

papa07 wrote:

The game will be made up of 270s and 94s. Because by the time you start slogging through that neverending transition only to realize that the 166 goalpost has been moved another six months (or more) down the road, lot of quitting gonna happen. That 270 wall that keeps creeping lower and lower will be a reality at 200 points in PvP. D3 better hurry with getting money from the playerbase, because this is the beginning of the end.

Will be?!? That's what it is now. When they introduce 4*'s that are any good (like Thor), I see them immediately at 270 by anyone willing to pay (ok, ok...sure...anyone who has save up all that ISO and HP...), and those are the only people who can rise to the top of the brackets.

I started out around the time Fury was being introduced - saw the three 4*'s as "wow, that would be neat, I'll never get there though" - and started working my way from 2* to 3*. Now trying to get a few good 3*'s and I still think I'll never get to 4* land both in ISO cost and rarity of covers - but it will be harder than ever to even get my 3*'s up since I'm trying to Top 100 in a world where I can't even compete with other 3* rosters, and they can't compete with the 4* monsters out there.

GuntherBlobel

Eh... The 3* game is still plenty fun. I'm not worried about the 4* characters and I'm pretty sure that Demiurge will not let the 4* game kill the entire game. We may see the rise of some truly large whales that rule the 4* game, but they will likely be an even smaller minority of the player base than before.

I let go of "keeping up" a long time ago and I still very much enjoy the game. My 2 cover Nick Fury doesn't hold me back from having fun.

Unknown

So are they never going to address the abysmall Token Pull rates for 3* and the snails pace the 2-->3 transition is?

I couldn't care less about 4*, but making me spend 100% of my time grinding for them (Elektra) is nonsense for a 2-3 transitioner.

Unknown

I don't see much of a point whether it's some 3* or 4* dominate the game because unless they have massive inflation (e.g. next month we have Y-Force who is better than X-Force and 3 months later we get Z-Force) it's still going to be settled on a few overpowered guys. And if they're going to add some mode that drastically shakes up the existing balance (e.g. random select team) then there's not much point to speculate on changes that may not even exist. X Force is likely the dominant character in the forseeable future, and nobody knows anything about the unforseeable future to make any guesses on it.

Konman

D3 is targeting the players who have paid before, and will pay again. The fully covered, fully leveled brand new character doesn't just happen, some player dropped real money to make that happen, and D3 is going to mine that for all its worth.

The true calculus on the game will be whether D3 prefers lots of new players spending a few bucks here and there on roster slots, or whether a few big spenders that cover and level each new character are the real target audience.

Spoit

Konman wrote:

D3 is targeting the players who have paid before, and will pay again. The fully covered, fully leveled brand new character doesn't just happen, some player dropped real money to make that happen, and D3 is going to mine that for all its worth.

The true calculus on the game will be whether D3 prefers lots of new players spending a few bucks here and there on roster slots, or whether a few big spenders that cover and level each new character are the real target audience.

They're both just a drop in the bucket compared to the sheer number of people who are still in the 2* (not even 3*) transition, who join and only play a few months

Mikaveus

This is going to turn into Dragon Ball Z. FIVE-star characters on the horizon, I tell ya!

Just kidding!

Okay, half-kidding.

In all seriousness, this 3 to 4-star transition would kill the game for me. I've only begun to round out my 3-star roster with decent covers and level them up, and it's taking tremendous game hours and ISO. I already get tired of battling X-Force Wolvie for a Top 10 spot, and now I have to contend with an expanding 4-star cast?

I always saw the 3-star realm as the game's bread 'n butter. An ever-growing assortment of characters that would lead to a diverse array of match-ups. And if you were lucky enough to nab a 4-star character, then that's fine. Not all of us have the talent, alliances, or resources to compete for 4-star covers, so this becomes an issue of the rich getting richer.

With 3-star characters, there's enough opportunity for people to even LUCK into a good team and at least be competitive with those who spend cash or all-encompassing hours. I see a lot of people getting left behind with a 4-star transition, or intentionally dropping out as I am likely to do.

Chrono_Tata

I don't know if a shift in the game to a 4-star roster would kill the game for me, but if they think that it is a good idea to release new 4-star characters via 7-day PvE events where you have to place top 50, like they are doing with Elektra, that will probably kill the game for me.

Spoit

Chrono_Tata wrote:

I don't know if a shift in the game to a 4-star roster would kill the game for me, but if they think that it is a good idea to release new 4-star characters via 7-day PvE events where you have to place top 50, like they are doing with Elektra, that will probably kill the game for me.

Could be worse. They could release it in Juggs heroic. Or unstable ISO