A Smoother 4* Transition

Seasick Pirate

How should we interpret this quote from the December Q&A?

"David wrote:

Moore"]]For starters, we’ll be releasing more 4*s this year, a lot more. We’re currently devoting a lot of thought to making that transition smoother than it was from 2*s to 3*s.

Is this meaning that collecting covers of 4*s will be easier to collect. Or is this referring to collecting the iso-8 and HP required for the roster slot and leveling up - which would then be a reference to Deadpool's Daily Quest.

I'm just wondering how other interpret this. Official clarification would be fantastic.
The full quote is below so you can read in it the original context.

"David wrote:

Moore"]
Q(a): Each new character needs a Roster Slot. Resources are needed to purchase Roster Slots. Over time, resources are not increasing, but Roster Slot prices are./What are your plans for addressing the high costs of Roster Slots with so many characters?

Q(b): Obtaining enough Iso can be difficult. Any plans to help with this?/Have you thought about giving out more Hero Points for progressions or rewards?

A: Hey everyone, we’d like to group these first few questions because the answers are closely related. Kicking off Year 2 of MPQ, we’ve run into a few issues that we always knew we’d encounter (should we be lucky enough to be as successful as we have been), related to what happens when we introduce a much larger roster and increasingly rare characters. Our goal has always been to preserve the things that make MPQ awesome, and keep players engaged, challenged, and loving every match. In order to do this, we have to continue evolving the design and some of this will change what players have come to expect as the status quo. For starters, we’ll be releasing more 4*s this year, a lot more. We’re currently devoting a lot of thought to making that transition smoother than it was from 2*s to 3*s. We’ve debated internally about how much to increase the inflow of Iso-8 and Hero Points, and how (to go about it). 56% of MPQ players this month started playing after September, more than half in the last two months. A lot of these players have 2* rosters, and increasing rewards for them too much would throw off the balance of the game this early, making it too easy. It’s a problem when the game is too challenging, but the reverse is also bad, as a lack of challenge will quickly bore you. Progression in any RPG eventually slows down, and speeding things up in one place often just hastens the moment when things get slow. On the other hand, increasing rewards just for more advanced players contributes to a widening gap between veterans and newer players. We’ve steadily increased the rate at which players earn Iso-8 over the past year (it’s almost three times as high as when we launched), and we expect that to continue. The inflow of Hero Points has also increased, though to a lesser extent. We do expect that most players will have to make choices about which characters join their roster and which they spend their Iso-8 on, just as you have to make choices about which of a character’s powers get upgraded to level 5. We’re finding a balance point between a world in which those decisions are uninteresting and a world where the constraints mean that you can’t meaningfully progress. One thing that makes that difficult is that the balance point is in a different place for different players: some enjoy very difficult decisions about who to keep and level, some expect to be able to acquire and max everything, and most are somewhere in between. In short, there’s no easy answers to this problem; it’s a complex issue with a lot of edge cases at our current scale. We’re devoting a lot of thought to improving this transition right now, and we appreciate hearing about your experiences to help us make better decisions. MPQ needs to evolve in the coming year and we at Demiurge are extremely excited for what 2015 has in store for Marvel Puzzle Quest and our community.

NorthernPolarity

Judging by the last developer qa, they intended the deadpool daily to be the answer to all questions, such as the meaning of life, whether or not p = np, so on and so forth.

morph3us

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Judging by the last developer qa, they intended the deadpool daily to be the answer to all questions, such as the meaning of life, whether or not p = np, so on and so forth.

That's my feeling as well. I suspect that D3 feel that between the revised 4* PvP progression at 1000 points, plus the increase in iso and HP (as subject as it is to the RNG gods) from DDQ, that it provides sufficient avenues for access to a 4* roster at this stage.

DaveR4470

My take on that comment was that there will eventually be as many 4*s as there are 3*s, with multiple complementary pairings, such that Thorverine isn't the only game in town.

Then we can start worrying about 5*s....

Druss

1000 in PvP is extremely difficult for 3* without significant expenditure in shields & health Packs (hulk bombing) + an element of luck.

Since this is the ONLY avenue for gaining 4* (as gaining top 2 is out of the question with 3*'s) this is hardly a smooth progression.

I personally never found the 2 -> 3* progression particularly onerous as 3* covers are/were obtainable (especially now with DDQ). Admittedly it took a good 6-8 months however I finished the 2 -> 3* progression about 4 months ago & in that time have received a grand total of 2 4* covers (excluding new releases - where obtaining a 2-3 cover character hardly benefits).

Only course of action is join the new way of playing the game, ie hoard HP, forget about rest of your roster/slots & buy X-Force covers.

turul

It might be a good idea to make a weekly 4*-winning Deadpool Quest, as hard as final stage of the Gauntlet.

Dauthi

I'm confused about this post. 4*s are at a easily obtainable 1k point total in pvp, and many without 4*s are able to get this in my alliance with a group of maxed 3*s. Once you get your first maxed 4* it gets that much easier to boot, creating a downhill scenario. I think a good question is how easy should this be? Right now with only a few 4*s it is pretty easy to get one maxed out. In the future with more 4*s it will be harder, then we may have a problem.

Buying a 4* cover that is currently obtained costs 2500 hp, paying anything below that is a discount. Getting one that you don't have is priceless

Unknown

They should add a 4* in each pve transition and in Gauntlet, between new characters after they already added a new 3* on them
It won't make you complete all of them but it would help and it would make pve more interesting to play

MarvelMan

Dauthi wrote:

I'm confused about this post. 4*s are at a easily obtainable 1k point total in pvp, and many without 4*s are able to get this in my alliance with a group of maxed 3*s. Once you get your first maxed 4* it gets that much easier to boot, creating a downhill scenario. I think a good question is how easy should this be? Right now with only a few 4*s it is pretty easy to get one maxed out. In the future with more 4*s it will be harder, then we may have a problem.

Buying a 4* cover that is currently obtained costs 2500 hp, paying anything below that is a discount. Getting one that you don't have is priceless

Totally agree that it is possible, and definitely a great discount. But it does take some dedication/luck for a 3* roster.

And what happens if they double the number of available 4* chars so that we only have a chance at each cover color once every 3 months via the progression (if you can nab #1 in PVP/PVE you can more than halve that time...but who can do that?)? To me it sounds like they are going to more than double the 4* roster too, so good luck covering any 4* via 1k progression rewards. Some other method is needed, and Im not talking spend $$ on HP.

wirius

I posted this in the suggestion forum for a new means to gain 4*s.

4* transition proposal
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24080&p=303141&hilit=wirius#p303141

SnowcaTT

I also posted one awhile back: half-length (two week) seasons, so they have an opportunity to catch up on giving out season-reward 4*'s. Right now they are giving out one 4* every four weeks, so to get all three covers (one per season) you need twelve weeks.

But they are releasing a new 4* every six (eight?) weeks - there is no way they can keep up with simply giving out the FIRST cover of each 4*, so players can buy the rest if they so desire (you know - revenue and all).

Two-week seasons would get a 4* every two weeks, so all three covers would be obtained in six weeks - about in time for the next 4* release....

If the 4*'s are going to be put out at a vastly increased rate, the ability to obtain those covers needs to be equally ramped up. Perhaps putting their token draw rate up to "incredibly generous" 0.7% 3* draw rate, rather than the "pull one every other season" 0.4%.

Unknown

At the moment it is possible (if difficult) to keep pretty much up with 4* releases IF you have the ability to hit 1k and get an occasional 1st in either PvE or PvP (basically describing what I do).

My IW, 4Thor, Fury and Xforce are cover maxed and optimized, Elektra maxed but want a purple to swap specs over which I will have soon from progression in Cage PvP) and up to 10 covers on starlord with the next 4* due. I've only bought a couple of 4Thor covers out of that but have now gained enough spare 4Thor covers that it wasn't needed (basically an unnecessary impulse buy )

That'll change as the pool dilutes of course but IMO the much bigger issue will be ppl trying to get from 3* to 4* who don't have a start on it already. The 4* pool growing is more painful than the 3* pool growing because, while you can get 4 covers from a PvP for a 3* (potentially) you can only get 2 4* covers, for different 4*s AND you're probably only getting one of those since 1st is a PITA to get and the person doing it probably doesn't need the cover . It's much trickier to get bursts of covers for one 4* option than a 3* option.

Also of note... the devs have said they are happy with the percentage of players getting 4* covers after the progression change BUT my question for them would be what percentage of players WHO NEED the cover get it from progression? A lot of those covers are really 1k ISO for someone and muddy the water with the statistics.

Punisher5784

Maybe we'll get a nice surprise when all the 3*'s are done in DPQ and then we see the first cover of all the 4*'s! All of the 4* characters are in the DPQ background so it's possible! But the survival might be against level 166-200 enemies.

Next two weeks is the remaining 3* then it will be a week of XForce, Inv Woman, Nick Fury, Elektra, Star Lord followed by Thor, Devil Dino... Professor X.. okay maybe this won't happen