Encouraging roster diversity

mischiefmaker

The dev team once told us that encouraging roster diversity was an important goal of theirs, and rightly so -- roster diversity is one of the goals that both benefits players (more playable character = more combos to discover and more teams to play with/against = more fun/longevity) and the company (more playable characters = more roster slots and more places to put iso/hp = more money). Whenever we get game modes that encourage roster diversity*, like when the Simulator ran for the first time, response is generally positive, with people enjoying getting to play with different teams.

* Note that "encourage roster diversity" is not the same as "punish the lack of roster diversity", which is why people often are so down on Heroics.

So that got some folks thinking: what if we had an explicit bonus to encourage roster diversity in PvE? For each node, let the game keep track of the number of unique characters you've used to beat that node. When you hit a certain threshold, you get an ISO bonus. On the info screen, there'd be a bar on the right that fills up as you use more unique characters, and you can tap on it to see a list of which ones you've already used. Nodes could vary both the threshold and the bonus (9 unique characters would be pretty easy, for example, while 30 characters quite hard, and the bonus could be anywhere from 70 ISO for a trivial node to 2k or more for a hard node).

How would that affect the game?

1. Encourages everyone to build and level up B, C, and D-team characters. Right now the game revolves around your best team, and maybe a B team in case you run out of health packs. Having nodes where you get a big ISO bonus for having a large number of viable teams means people will keep and continue to play with characters, experiment more, and discover more depth to the game than just "XForce crushes everything rawr".

2. Provides another option for how to play PvE. Right now there are a few choices: grind your face off for top placement, grind a bit for top progression, play lazily and just get whatever falls in your lap. This would give you another option: maximize number of characters per node to collect as much ISO as you can.

3. Gives ISO to the people who need it most. The highest ISO rewards would probably require the highest thresholds, which transition rosters would have a harder time hitting. But that's ok, because most transition rosters are limited by covers, not ISO -- there are transition players sitting on 200k ISO and nowhere to spend it.

4. Balance ISO flow from LRs. On the other hand, it used to be the best source of covers for transition was lightning rounds. But these days a lot of vets are running lightning rounds just for the ISO. If the Diversity Bonus ISO is too much, I'd be happy to see ISO from lightning round fights get cut in half or go away entirely, which would likely cause most vets to stop playing them, and letting transition players win tokens more easily.

Thanks to Polarity and others who offered feedback on this suggestion!

Unknown

"Suggestion topic" in "General Discussion" and after i can't do some ad for my Suggestion Topic ...

DrStrange-616

I'm having enough trouble building a solid A team for the transition, much less a B or a C. My biggest problem is that I progress laterally (I add lots of of heroes) but making more than a handful playable is the real challenge. The problem (for me at least) isn't just covers, but ISO as well. I tend to rely on the same few small sets of heroes because they're the only ones I have that can survive.

I don't need encouragement to build a diverse roster. I need the tools to do so.

I'm sure this is probably different for those in the 3*-4* transistion, but right now it seems impossible I have covers & ISO to field one solid team, much less two or three.

rixmith

I agree that the carrot is better than the stick in this regard. I think there are many ideas for this:

I always like accomplishment-based goals (Use characters no more than once in this sub and receive +500 ISO. Use only Avengers in this sub + 1000 ISO).

I'd also like to see node specific buffs like Avengers/Villains/Females/Gods/Scientists/Flyers (or whatever keywords you want) get +20 levels on this node

Any way to make the game live up the Puzzle part of the name in figuring out a strategy for character use in order to get bonuses would be welcome.

mjh

Great idea but before this happens, roster slot pricing needs to be addressed. It's at the critical stage now

SnowcaTT

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

Great idea but before this happens, roster slot pricing needs to be addressed. It's at the critical stage now

Agree. The biggest holdup to diversity right now is roster costs. 800 HP for next character they release, assuming you have one of each (diversity!) - that's just ridiculous.

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

Great idea but before this happens, roster slot pricing needs to be addressed. It's at the critical stage now

Agree. The biggest holdup to diversity right now is roster costs. 800 HP for next character they release, assuming you have one of each (diversity!) - that's just ridiculous.

Roster cost doesn't affect diversity as people will always make space for the optimal characters. Most people's rosters are littered with characters they don't play (1*, 2*, Beast, Doc Ock etc).

What discourages diversity is the PvP mandate that winning as quickly as possible with the scariest team is EVERYTHING. Past 900 points now all you see is *featured*/XF/4Thor and if the occassional person isn't running that team then 99% of the time it's because they haven't got a useable XF/4Thor.

I dont think diversity is a big problem in PvE in any case but it sure is in PvP.

Unknown

I already use a very wide range of character to beat nodes. I only reach for X-Force/GoT/Hood or Loki if I am $$%£^ off at a node. In Florida in the current Hunt I think my first clear used 1 HP - I killed SG because I could not get her out of the way of a big attack and about 20+ characters from my rooster.

However in PvP I use a much smaller team. Climb team is either patch or X-Force/Lazy Daken/Featured. Form 500 onwards its two of X-Force/Hood/GoT/cMags/LazyThor depending on the team I am facing - I.E. if they have a hood I always use X-Force/Hood to quickly kill of their hood.

One way around this problem would be to make it a best of three you both have to field 3 teams. If a single match netted you 30 points for a win and -20 points for a lose you get 60 points for 3-0, 30 points for 2-1, -20 points for 1-2 and -40 points for 0-3. Now we probably still have a standard set of 3 teams but if D3 was smart that introduce characters which were hard counters to said teams.