Anyone else notice this trend in new players?

Unknown

When I started I got a crew of level 94 ( 85 at the time ) 2 star characters then focused on getting some level 166 3 star characters fully covered.

Recently I've noticed ( given I play every day, and participate in each event ) that in the versus events I am seeing more new players who have a litany of capped out 94 2 star characters, then focusing on a 4 star xforce wolverine abandoning the priority of upgrading a 3 star character.

This is to say I am seeing draws with a guy with the feature character ( i.e. luke cage ) teamed up with a level 94 2 star thor, and a level 175 wolverine or a level 94 ares and a 190 wolverine.

I've made no secret that I think xforce is overpowered ( I don't care since mine is over 200 ) but I have seen that ( perhaps with good reason ) many newbs have foregone upgrading 3 star characters in favor of him..

Thoughts?

p.s. as of now I have my xforce wolverine over 200, and a half dozen 3 star characters at 166. Rather than get more, my focus has been to get as many 3 star characters leveled to 100 so in all these versus events I have a decently upgraded feature character leveled up.

Unknown

He is handed out one of each cover fairly early on and anyone who fights in PVP can see how prevalent and powerful he is that it makes total sense to pour all resources into him and fill out 3*s afterwards.

Sad reality but an efficient strategy.

Unknown

I don't think there's any secret conspiracy to get you to spend into 4*. If you look at the history of game dominating character it's something like:

Ragnarok (3*)
Wolverine (2*), Thor (2*)
Spiderman (3*)/Magneto (3*)
Patch (3*, mostly because of Magneto)
Thor (3*, until Sentry showed up)
Daken (3*, mostly because of Sentry who came later)
Sentry (3*)
X Force (4*)
Thor (4*)
and likely Iron Fist now (3*)

If we assume devs are equally likely to screw up on any character, the distribution of the overpowered game dominating character can be solely explained by the fact that there are a lot more 3*s. Sure, X Force is currently on top of the overall overpowered list, but I'm pretty sure 4*s do not have the longest time spent as the most powerful character in MPQ despite they ought to (otherwise why even get them?) And currently, it seems like Iron Fist is at least going to unseat Thor, and the relationship between X Force and Iron Fist is unclear (is Iron Fist's purple so overpowered that you want to bring the strongest black user, or is X Force's black so overpowered that you want Iron Fist? Probably a bit of both).

Unknown

Yes, I have a person in my alliance who does this, though I'm unsure if he bought any covers.

Because transitioning to 3* is too mainstream.

konannfriends

i have come to the conclusion that competing for 3* characters with less than 10 or more 3 stars maxed is impossible, the meta game has changed so much in the last 7 months.

i only have 3 weak 3* and none of the hard hitting ones, (Thor, Patch, BP,Etc) i want to compete for 3 stars so i can expand my roster and eventually start competing for 4* but with a roster like mie ita impossible so i bought xforce covers, 3 black to be exact.

so now he is at 2,5,2 i plan on buying the green ones soon.
i see no reason to struggle in this game when the obvious reason is to xforce your way higher

not Saying that xforce will get you top 25 but he sure will help you atleast break top 100. at the end of the day he is only 1 more character an will get killed just like anyone else but he sure makes it a hell of LOT easier to take out other xforces.

Vhailorx

konannfriends wrote:

i have come to the conclusion that competing for 3* characters with less than 10 or more 3 stars maxed is impossible, the meta game has changed so much in the last 7 months.

i only have 3 weak 3* and none of the hard hitting ones, (Thor, Patch, BP,Etc) i want to compete for 3 stars so i can expand my roster and eventually start competing for 4* but with a roster like mie ita impossible so i bought xforce covers, 3 black to be exact.

so now he is at 2,5,2 i plan on buying the green ones soon.
i see no reason to struggle in this game when the obvious reason is to xforce your way higher

not Saying that xforce will get you top 25 but he sure will help you atleast break top 100. at the end of the day he is only 1 more character an will get killed just like anyone else but he sure makes it a hell of LOT easier to take out other xforces.

xforce and/or 4* is essential for regular top 5 pvp play.

I have been able to get top 100 in pvp at will with an average 3* roster (mostly patch and lazy cap at first, now a growing roster). I can see that it might be difficult with a weaker 3* stable (patch with 5 yellow is fairly essential, as patch + 2* daken make climbing to 400 in pvp almost trivial, it is just a matter of time).

I can see a circumstance where a player with a decent 2* roster dumps all their ISO into the first few 3*s for whom they get 7+ covers. If you end up with 1 weak 3* at say 124, and no one else above 94, then pvp will be hard, and pave might be difficult if you don't have to boosted characters. But in general, if you follow the copious advice on this forum, you can progress from to 2* to 3* land ASSUMING you have enough roster slots to collect a broad stable of 3*, and you are willing to keep at it for several months.

Unknown

I've seen it happen. I don't think that it's good. Skipping a solid roster of 166s will both hurt you in PvE and handicap you a bit in PvP as you will not understand basic strategy of some teams. They hand out XF as the first 4* in Daily rewards, which means anyone that wants one can have a fully covered on for . I personally did not "skip" the 3* transition and I'm glad I didn't.

Xenoberyll

I was very "lucky" with winning covers for X-Force when he still sucked and i levelled him because bad as he was he was still better than any of my undercovered 3star characters. Then the vaulting began so i had a 4/4/3 X-Force before i had a usable Patch, Thor etc. I was always late collecting covers for Magneto, then Sentry just getting them to 10+ covers when the nerf-bat hit. So i'm happy with my X-Force, even if i only have 1 maxed 3star to pair him with. The rest is about lvl 100-120 though and i'll max some more as i get the ISO. I think the vaulting of 3stars worth chasing made that route the best for me, but the rotation has changed enough since then for other options to be availiable again.

Mikaveus

I can't fault noobs for leveling X-Force over their 3's. The guy is OP and the highest ranked character in the game. However, unless they have another 4 waiting in the wings, they will need decently leveled 3's to flank X-Force in PvP play. So that reality should catch up with them. If XP is nerfed to a reasonable degree, then noobs won't invest so heavily in him.

JamieMadrox

I did something very similar almost a year ago. I had maxed out my 1* team and had decent covers in a few 3* characters from lucky token pulls, alliance rewards, and placing decent in some PVEs so I decided to skip the 2* phase and went right to 3* transition.

hurcules

Nothing wrong with this. If you are going to put in good money to buy covers, might as well buy the best ones.

A deep roster will still win out in both PvE and PvP at the end of the day.

JamieMadrox

hurcules wrote:

Nothing wrong with this. If you are going to put in good money to buy covers, might as well buy the best ones.

A deep roster will still win out in both PvE and PvP at the end of the day.

Deep rosters help in PVE. In PVP all you need is X-Force TGT Loaner.

rednailz

Yeah, I've noticed a lot of 2* rosters with high leveled xforce / GT. Some GT I've noticed even have 0 yellow, looks like they got 1 red and 1 blue and bought the rest sort of thing, same with xforce for some.

I'm not judging, spend your money on whatever you want, I'm just not sure what you're playing for if you decided to skip the 3* part of the game....I honestly don't see a point. They already have mxed out GT/Xforce, and paid a large sum to do it (you aren't telling me a 2* roster is placing 1st often enough in PvP to build them naturally).

So where's the excitement, or battle, or the point on even playing? So you can win a 3* cover you obviously wn't be using?

Wonko33

I also see people with great 3*s who use a **** 222 xforce instead- more points and less health loss for me I guess...

rednailz

Wonko33 wrote:

I also see people with great 3*s who use a **** 222 xforce instead- more points and less health loss for me I guess...

I see heaps of **** xforces, even ones being used where they have a 2* that would be more formidible.

DaveR4470

TPR, I'm not sure if I'm one of the peeps you've seen, but I'm close enough that I'm going to reply to you.

I've got a 7-cover level 156 X-force (max green and 1 in blk/yellow), a 104 3* Storm (3/1/4), and a 102 R&G (2/2/4). Beyond that, a ton of 94s.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay competitive in PvE and PvP with just the 94s, even running solid teams with some combination of OBW/Mags/Storm/Thor/Ares. Here's what I knew I could definitely get (this is pre-DDQ): the 300-point token in PvP. That's it. Even the top progression award wasn't always achievable -- it depended on the required character and the timing of the nodes a lot of the time. (I would say that it was achievable at least 90% of the time, though, so if you want to count that as a guarantee, I wouldn't object strenuously.) I'm not in a top 100 alliance, and therefore don't get the "bonus" 3* covers that events dish out, either.

I did get some lucky token draws on green for X-force, and (as others have noted) there are multiple X-force covers given away as daily rewards. I actually did hold back on leveling X-force for a long time, because I didn't want to upset the scaling apple cart. (Side note: I haven't noticed a huge difference now that he's at 156. It seems, in hindsight, that pushing Storm and R&G above 100 was the big factor in scaling up nodes for me. Interesting...) But in the end, I did.

Why? Because I feel I have to do that to remain competitive, especially in PvP. For better or worse, I've noticed that I do a lot better on defense leaving X-force and OBW as my defensive team vs. Ares and OBW. Whether X is legitimately better in the hands of the AI than Ares (possible) or people just don't want to deal with him and move on (possible), I get hammered down a lot less these days. Also, X-force with the 5 green is just faster at damage-dealing than Ares or Thor. And speed is of the essence in PvP (and sometimes in PvE).

But more relevant to your original comment... In the end, for me it's got nothing to do with foregoing covering up a good 3* team... It's that I can't cover up a good 3* team. I simply can't get the covers with an all 94-level team that's outside of a top 100 alliance. (Again, DDQ changes this dramatically.) Or, more accurately, I can get them, but at an extremely slow pace. I'd love to have a well-leveled Hulk or Loki or Dr Doom. But if I can't get the covers, I can't have those.

Again, DDQ changes this calculus, which is why I'm psyched by its inclusion into the game. Would it, in hindsight, have changed my decision about leveling X-force? Honestly, no - the benefits of having X-force are too great (and the scaling cost isn't prohibitive for now). But it does give me the chance to, within a reasonable period of time, get some significantly-leveled 3*s to pair with him, and get to a more "appropriate" level of competition for X-force in PvP.

tl;dr: It's hard out there for a pimp.

morph3us

DaveR4470 wrote:

Whether X is legitimately better in the hands of the AI than Ares (possible) or people just don't want to deal with him and move on (possible), I get hammered down a lot less these days. Also, X-force with the 5 green is just faster at damage-dealing than Ares or Thor. And speed is of the essence in PvP (and sometimes in PvE).

Your strategy makes a lot of sense, given your situation. I suspect you're seeing fewer attacks, because your X-Force is deterring the maxed 2* teams from hitting you. I don't think X-Force is better than Ares in the hands of the AI, but the psychological effect of seeing X-Force for the 2* teams is promoting a more liberal use of the skip button.

DaveR4470

morph3us wrote:

I don't think X-Force is better than Ares in the hands of the AI, but the psychological effect of seeing X-Force for the 2* teams is promoting a more liberal use of the skip button.

That's actually what I thought as well -- it's a psychout more than anything else.

I think there's a chance that the AI uses X-force better than Ares... because we all know that the AI will blissfully self-destruct a badly injured Ares with Sunder against, say, a character with 500 health left. At least X-force can't kill himself.

Druss

I have also noticed the OP trend.

Pretty much everyone in 2* land nowadays has worked out that you don't need 63 (or whatever the number is now) of the characters you need 1.

I have done my run from 0 - 400 in Cage PvP earlier & EVERY battle featured X-Force, often accompanied by OBW, 2* Storm etc.

Now I'm not advocating a nerf, but surely this is detrimental to the game. I'm glad I'm not starting out now because I seriously wouldn't stay with the game as (at present) only things that count is how quickly you can level your X-Force, & because ALL battles are featuring him now, how much HP am I willing to spend on shields.

Gone are any tactics or decisions on which hero to choose, gone are any battle diversity & to be honest, gone is any point of battling for a new character which will sit on the shelf watching X-F wipe everything.

Unknown

hurcules wrote:

Nothing wrong with this. If you are going to put in good money to buy covers, might as well buy the best ones.

A deep roster will still win out in both PvE and PvP at the end of the day.

Someone has to fund this game. Might as well be the noobs.

hurcules

Jamie Madrox wrote:

hurcules wrote:

Nothing wrong with this. If you are going to put in good money to buy covers, might as well buy the best ones.

A deep roster will still win out in both PvE and PvP at the end of the day.

Deep rosters help in PVE. In PVP all you need is X-Force TGT Loaner.

True to a certain extent. Although I'd be curious if anyone with 1k+ points running loaner/XF/Goddess wouldn't attract tonnes of attacks compared to another one running maxed featured/XF/Goddess.