Character Rotations For Season X (Dr. Doom Returns!)

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Greetings MPQ Community,

Here's the latest Character Rotation plan set to go live with the start of Season X on Thursday, January 8th, 2015. (To see the original post outlining the Character Rotation Plan visit: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17494).

Doctor Doom returns with a new and devastating third ability - Diabolical Plot! (Further details here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21594).

Rotating In: Doctor Doom, Human Torch, Luke Cage, Punisher (and Elektra added to packs).

Rotating Out: Beast, Doctor Octopus, She-Hulk, Colossus.

The full slate of 3-Star characters available for Season X;

Blade
Captain America (Steve Rogers)
Captain Marvel
Daredevil
Deadpool
Doctor Doom
Falcon
Gamora
The Hood
Hulk
Human Torch
Loki
Luke Cage
Mystique
Punisher
Rocket & Groot
Sentry
Spider-Man
Storm (Mohawk)
Wolverine (Patch).

Characters that are taken out of packs will start rotating back in as other characters ahead of them in the rotation queue return. We'll always communicate in advance which characters will be rotating out.

Reminder: This allows us to work on the characters that are out of the spotlight.

Thank you!

Unknown

Boo! She-Hulk & Colossus going Bye Bye. I have yet to cover max them, and I wanted both.

Ah well. I guess I will wait till they return.

Unknown

Ironically, all four being rotated out need work. Beast is a mess. Doc ock green needs more damage for that ap cost. Shulkie is okay, but a little more damage for red would be nice. Colussus black cost is at least 1 ap too much.

wymtime

Bring back CMAGS!!! He had been intentioanlly taken out of rotation when I was first building up my roster 9-10 months ago, then I was not able to win enough covers for him after his funbalancing and now he is still Valuted He is one of the few characters I need more covers of.
He is probably getting an animation updated so he can be cool like Wolverine, but still bring Cmags back soon, he is a really good character to keep vaulted this long.

cactusrob

stephen43084 wrote:

Ironically, all four being rotated out need work. Beast is a mess. Doc ock green needs more damage for that ap cost. Shulkie is okay, but a little more damage for red would be nice. Colussus black cost is at least 1 ap too much.

That's probably why they are out - I doubt there's much irony there as it's a calculated step so they can be reworked.

Unknown

This is not a good idea.

Good idea: taking Beast and She-Hulk away. They need work. Specifically, it's bad that She-Hulk wouldn't have a good green skill. That's like Punisher not having black or Psylocke not having purple (HINT).

Also, maybe look into drop rates? I'm pretty sure She-Hulk was popping up at 2* rarity. Just sayin'.

Beast's lab animation needs to be shortened. Seriously, seriously shortened.

Bad idea: taking away Doc Ock and Colossus before there's been a reasonable chance to get them.

Again, I've fully covered She-Hulk, and most of that came from standard tokens in the last couple of months. I'm 5/3/2 on Beast, and 1/2/0 Doc Ock, 2/0/3 Colossus. So, maybe decide not to hide away the (actually pretty good) characters I haven't had the chance to grab under the guise of improving them? Because they're pretty good. Don't take them away.

esoxnepa

"David wrote:

Moore"]Greetings MPQ Community,

Rotating Out: Beast, Doctor Octopus, She-Hulk, Colossus.

Reminder: This allows us to work on the characters that are out of the spotlight.

Thank you!

Time to get them some heavy training in the Danger Room and remember how to use their full abilities!

Unknown

"David wrote:

Moore"]Greetings MPQ Community

Rotating In: Doctor Doom, Human Torch, Luke Cage, Punisher (and Elektra added to packs

Why U No put Cmags back? *cries

Unknown

We are getting one more character into the packs, Electra, than we are losing. Will this lower the odds for the other 4* characters, or for some of the other characters? I am hoping for some xforce covers and am debating if I should wait until Friday to use my tokens.

Vhailorx

With Elektra being added to the 4* pool, are the 4* rates being diluted? Dare I hope that 4* drop rates will be slightly increased to account for the fact that with 5 4*s out now, and more on the way, a %.6 drop rate from the "best" tokens means that 4*s are basically unattainable for those who don't have top tier rosters (or money).

At some point I think the rewards structure of this game needs a major overhaul to mitigate the user-base fragmentation that has been growing worse and worse in the past 6 months. It's great that the game has lots of new players, and it's great that 4*s are being rolled out as the new end game to keep the vets playing. but it's not great that getting keeping the game interesting for veterans has made it substantially harder for new players to become veterans.

Unknown

It's a solid list - I"m annoyed that Colossus is going out before I get that last red cover, and that mags hasn't come back yet, but all four need work. Doc Ock's Blue needs to be rethought from the ground up, since right now I'd fire Beast's before Doc Ock's. But don't touch his black; his black is a great skill.

Carnage_78

I am so glad to see Doctor Doom, Human Torch & Punisher back in the rotation!

I was very keen on building them before they got vaulted...Punisher was actually one of my first characters...I won a PvE bracket in my early days in the game to get 3 of his covers!!!

I only have a handful of covers for each (actually just one for Doctor Doom) but I really like those characters so for me they've been on the back burner for way too long...I look forward to resuming their evolution within my roster!

To be honest, apart from Colossus (which I've got a good number of covers for & would be keen on finishing up), I am not fussed too much about the departures this time around...so I shall hold on to my tokens for a few more days in the hope of getting lucky with the characters that I actually want!

mohio

Is this queue to return an actual thing or just something to make the post sound nicer? If so it sure would be nice to see what the queue looked like. I imagine it changes based on how quickly reworks are going for different chars so they can't really share it but still.

TheViceroy

Fie on the lack of 's return!

I've been saving my tokens & ISO for him to double down on True Healing characters along with my max Patch.

The should just keep ALL of the early release and underpowered 3 Stars out of rotation until they can be properly fixed.
That, or implement my suggestion that would fix character acquisition once and for all.
ONCE AND FOR ALL!!
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21313&start=20#p275018

dr tinykittylove

Mororo has been given out so many times, once or more every season, why? She should be vaulted. I still need colossus.

rixmith

I'm just glad to have She Hulk and Doc Ock out of Lightning Round consideration! Hopefully some characters that I can do something with will be rotated into LRs.

Moral

Mororo is one of the best special tile spammers to deal with some of the new abilities they are releasing.

Death to traps!

lokiagentofhotness

Why are Ldaken, Lthor and Cmags still vaulted?

Last season we already had Mohawk/Falcon/Hulk/Captain America covers being given out like they were free. Come on, guys.

Why keep the few useful PVP juggernauts vaulted?

eaise

LDaken should have made a return. He is the best 3*. This is the second season that he will have been vaulted. That's too long for a character of that caliber

Vhailorx

As per the 12/14 community rankings:

Of the top 10 ranked 3*s in the game, 5 are currently vaulted of have been vaulted for multiple seasons in the recent past (Lazy Thor, Lazy Daken, Black Panther, cMags, Patch)

Of the top 20 ranked 3*s, 8 are currently vaulted or have been vaulted recently (five above + Human Torch, Punisher, Loki)

going to the top 25 gives 4 more vaulted characters (Psylocke, Daredevil, Doom, GSBW).

[note that some of these numbers aren't quite fair as someone like loki was definitely not a top 20 character pre-vaulting).


So the overall distribution is OK, but it definitely seems like they have been vaulting the very best and the very worst characters, leaving the mediocre people in the middle (think spidey, hulk, falcon, etc).

Overall, I think the vaulting system has had a decidedly negative effect for players.

On the positive side, vaulting does let all 3*s go into the token rotation without "making" d3p lower the individual drop rates (though this begs a followup question of why ~16% chance of a 3* in any herioc token is an uncrossable barrier).

On the neutral side, established veterans already have almost all of these characters, so they haven't been hurt at all. Perhaps they have even been able to build the new characters slightly faster.

Another theoretical positive is that characters can be modified while in the vault. But this is clearly unnecessary since Sentry and Hood were significantly changed without any time vaulted.

Weighing against those considerations are the one, massive negative with vaulting both as a general concept and as it has been specifically practiced here. In general, vaulting is just another way of diluting the 3* pool. Rather than diluting the chance of pulling every character by a set amount, vaulting just concentrates the diminished pull value into a few characters. So vaulting isn't a long term fix to the problem. At best its a short term patch.

And worse, the specific characters that have been vaulted are essential characters (3* thor, patch, lazy Daken, BP, cMags in particular, also punisher). these are the 3* workhorses. It is quite difficult to be a top tier contender without using these characters (even more so now that Sentry-bombing is dead), or the top 4*s that are even harder to get.

What message does it send to new players to have a game with a very slow progression curve, where it can take months to build even a single 3* character, and then tell those new players that they can't even get started on that long process because the only characters worth building aren't available?

TL;DR = Vaulting has been a terrible, terrible thing for transition players, especially because of the particular characters who have been vaulted.

yogi_

Updated the main listing in the character thread. Below is another perspective of the 3* character absences.

Character absences
Since Season 7:
Ragnarok

Since Season 8:
Magneto
Thor

Since Season 9:
Black Panther
Black Widow
Daken
Iron Man
Psylocke

Since Season 10:
Beast
Colossus
Doctor Octopus
She-Hulk

3/8 of the 3* roster are now absent (12 out of 32 in total). That's almost another whole set of character rankings - I call them the psuedo 3*'s (in the game, but not really).

Here is a model for a new 1* - 3* character ranking.

Another for my concept of Common, Uncommon and Rare Tokens. Also I see no reason now for Bag-Man not to be put back into the rotation (given I remember a dev saying the 2* % could handle another 5 - 7 characters).