Do 4*'s do -anything- for you?

SnowcaTT

OK, so the top PVP tiers are 4*, and you almost have to have at least one (and probably more) to successfully get there regularly. And once there, the 4*'s can win more 4*'s....horray! And you earn 3*'s faster which you rarely use since you have 4*'s......

This is a question more for those that don't have a character past level 166. Does a new 4* - or any 4* - do anything for you right now?

They are introduced and sit on your roster forever before you have a chance to get more covers - so they "waste" a roster slot, they are never used.

The only time they would be featured in PVP the following PVP - but you won't have many covers, so it is not greatly better than the loaner.

The only time they are featured in PVE is the following PVE - so you might not hit progression in one PVE every two months.

You can possibly T100 with only 2*'s in PVP, easily T100 and likely T50 with 3*'s - not terribly difficult to hit T25 and some rare few can even get to the 1K 4* progression using only 3*'s. 4*'s help as a quasi-"shield" (less attacks), but are not needed to get most non 4* rewards.

You will likely do BETTER in PVE without 4*'s, since your scaling won't be as high and you'll still have all the essential and buffed characters.

Fist, the question to the players - do you look forward to 4*'s? Will they help you anywhere outside of being able to "win" PVP?

Second, the question for the Devs....you are giving out more and more 4*'s, without making them really accessible to 3* rosters, and more covers means a deeper cover pool, making it increasingly more difficult to get any of them covered (where is the easy 4* transition again?)....what are you doing to make 4*'s seem worthwhile to have outside of PVP, or is that the only place they belong?

Unknown

They're pushing them out too fast, and they're doing it at the expense of getting people a meaningful number of covers. One nice thing about the 4*s in 2014 was that - starting with Nick Fury in the Seasons - they were giving you one per season in alliance season awards, and then one per month in daily awards (eventually), meaning that anyone got them to 1/1/1, and anyone in a top 100 alliance to 2/2/2, aside from anything else. It gave you a chance to get enough covers to have a shot at actually getting them fully covered. I've got X-Force, IW, Devil Dino, and NF all full y covered now (though the latter two need respecs), and Goddess Thor at 3/2/2 right before the daily rewards start up on her (I think I get my first Saturday), so they all are either usable or close to. And the three covers I'll presumably still need for Goddes Thor will be able to be bought, tokened, or (hopefully) earned from the PVP progression after that.

But right now, Starlord and Elektra are both 1/1/1, and I'm probably lucky to have that many covers for them. They're trophies, like the 4*s were before the X-Force buff. Starlord will get a second monthly award, but he's probably not getting any more, and both he and Elektra may not be usable for a year or more. Professor X only dilutes the pool more. They're reverting 4*s back to trophy status, because tokens aren't going to fill in the gaps like they have for the older 4*s at anywhere near the same rate, and I don't expect to have any post-Goddess 4* be usable in 2015. Even when Elektra and Starlord hit daily awards - presumable days 580/610/640 and 670/700/730 - they're only likely to be at 6-7 covers each unless I get a token windfall between now and then, in part because they're not worth the headaches of getting 1000 points in PVP for.

tanis3303

Ben Grimm wrote:

But right now, Starlord and Elektra are both 1/1/1, and I'm probably lucky to have that many covers for them. They're trophies, like the 4*s were before the X-Force buff. Starlord will get a second monthly award, but he's probably not getting any more, and both he and Elektra may not be usable for a year or more. Professor X only dilutes the pool more. They're reverting 4*s back to trophy status, because tokens aren't going to fill in the gaps like they have for the older 4*s at anywhere near the same rate, and I don't expect to have any post-Goddess 4* be usable in 2015. Even when Elektra and Starlord hit daily awards - presumable days 580/610/640 and 670/700/730 - they're only likely to be at 6-7 covers each unless I get a token windfall between now and then, in part because they're not worth the headaches of getting 1000 points in PVP for.

I'm one of these 4* players with Thorverine, and I can say the lot of us of is no more excited for a new character release than anyone else is. I ground the Starlord release event to death and have hit the 1K cover for him every time he's been up for grabs in PvP, leaving him at 5/2/3. But you know what? I'm NEVER going to use him. Elektra is in a similar boat. Who am I going to leave on the bench for them, Thor? Xforce? Not freakin likely. Professor X is not going to be any different. Even for players like me who can hit that 1K PvP progression with minimal effort, new characters are just not very exciting. They're not going to replace our PvP team, and with the scaling being the monster it is, they probably wont see any play in PvE either since Surge/Smite is the only real way to deal with lvl 395 enemies. Basically, every couple weeks we grind for a trophy that will sit unused on our roster while we continue to use the same 2 characters ad nauseum. The "new character every other week" model D3 is using is simply not sustainable, and I'd be willing to bet that with each new release, more and more players are giving up and moving on. I don't have the stats to back up that claim, but just by the number of pleas for them to slow down character releases, I'm willing to bet this is the case. I think the only way to truly communicate this to the devs is for EVERYONE to not play for a new character. Seriously, the next time they release a Squirrel Girl level stinker, everyone just don't play the event. Sadly, only about 10% of the player base is forumites, so this will never work, but it's probably the only way to convince them they need to dial the new releases back.

thanos8587

imagine the day they actually try to make 4*s regular pvp features and/or pve essentials. thats when they become relevant to anyone but the hardcore of hardcores.

thats also the day an explosion of outrage occurs from 80%+ of the player base.

as it stands i dont even try to get 4*s from release pves. i always shoot for the 51-150 bracket in 4* releases. dd number 7 has much more relevance to me than prof x number 1 and i dont need to buy a roster slot.

i dont have elektra, starlord nor will i have prof x, and i really dont much care if i do at this point.

it would be interesting if they end up doing a dpd for 4*s (like anniversary week or something), but even then would anyone really care about anything other than xforce/GoT?

dr tinykittylove

they do a lot for me. Xf just being his hairy, slashy self, Thor with her big guns, Fury's shiny head, Elektra all come hither with her broken neck and floaty hair, starlord being all sneaky and leaderly, and Xavier being all Invisible with IW...

Oh, you mean in the sense of being useful? Probably not, but it really depends what you want out of the game. My 1-2*s won't be winning any major events for me, but I still enjoy pulling them out and throwing them at easier enemies. And only 1 of my 4*s is really practical in serious pvp right now, but I still get a kick of putting together my half-baked 4*s and using them whereever I can. Not even sure how I survived, but I even won the final deadpool survival node with my lvl 103 dino/fury/electra once.

I find there's a fair bit to do with the game besides winning all the things! Not that winning is bad or anything, just hey. I just like playing around with my roster.

Unknown

So here is what i am hearing.

No one gets excited about new characters until they are playable which is a long way off for the majority of players. No one gets excited about new characters unless they can match or beat the raw power of Xor, which isn't terribly likely.

So for the majority they need covers faster and easier to get excited about new characters, and for the elite they need people who might actually go toe to toe with xforce/Thor.

Or its time to REALLY shake things up and make this game into a 4v4 or sometimes 5v5 so more characters can fit onto the roster because a duo simply wont cut it anymore.

GrumpySmurf1002

XForce does a ton for me, but even him I'm phasing out in PvE unless I'm struggling with a node, or it's rough (lvl 270+) to begin with. I'm using Thor-Grocket-Loki/Blade a ton now, it adds some needed variety and scaling is such that I don't have a problem.

That's what my goal for the 4* is, really just more variety. IW is max covered, Fury is getting there (5/2/2) and Thor and Elektra are at 8 each. I'll bring them to 170-200 (Thor higher, probably 222) and give myself some more flexibility. If it takes a year, so be it, but between the 1000 reward and token grinding, hopefully it'll be less.

I just stopped stressing over being able to max 4s. When they're ready, they're ready.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

So here is what i am hearing.

No one gets excited about new characters until they are playable which is a long way off for the majority of players. No one gets excited about new characters unless they can match or beat the raw power of Xor, which isn't terribly likely.

So for the majority they need covers faster and easier to get excited about new characters, and for the elite they need people who might actually go toe to toe with xforce/Thor.

Or its time to REALLY shake things up and make this game into a 4v4 or sometimes 5v5 so more characters can fit onto the roster because a duo simply wont cut it anymore.

I think that's probably fair. Note that everybody's reaction to a new 4* release nowadays is never really excitement, it's more akin to dread. A lot of us are resigned to spending the 850 HP (or whatever it is now) on roster slots every two weeks, but a 3* is at least usually usable fairly soon - I got my last cover for Luke Cage on Sunday, and I"m not missing more than 4 or 5 for any 3* at this point (1 for Gamora, 4 for Squirrel Girl and Cyclops, 5 for Iron Fist). Meanwhile, a 4* usually takes close to a year to hit usable, and they're managing to slow down the process.

One of the most basic problems is that the way the game is structured, it rewards you much more for building 5 more X-Forces than it ever will for building an Invsisble Woman, a Devil Dinosaur, a Starlord, an Elektra, and a Professor X instead.

PeterGibbons316

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Or its time to REALLY shake things up and make this game into a 4v4 or sometimes 5v5 so more characters can fit onto the roster because a duo simply wont cut it anymore.

Or just remove the restriction that you MUST use the powered up character. And maybe boost them a bit more if you DO choose to use them.

simonsez

The reality is that there's no real endgame with a game like this. The one thing that would make the game more interesting is new story content, not a new character we have to chase every 2 weeks. But stories don't generate revenue, do they?

I'm glad that we don't have the power creep that makes each new 4 a must-have. That sort of hamster wheel gets very demoralizing very quickly, so I'm glad they've resisted the temptation to go that route. That said, I'd still like to be able to jack around with the lesser 4s, just to try to have some fun with them. I have a 12 cover Elektra into which I've pumped no ISO whatsoever. It'd be foolish to do so, when there are better options. But if they would just cut the damn character release schedule in half, and cut it WAY back for the 4s, I might finally get to the point where I could send some ISO her way. But at the rate they currently release characters, there's no way that'll ever happen.

Mawryk

The one with readily available covers is the only one I use - X-Force. If not for daily rewards and some lucky token pulls, he would also be languishing with not enough covers to be useful. I can appreciate where 4hor would be great, but I don't have the time and/or dedication to play at a high enough level to increase covers at a decent rate.

At least with DDQ, I see progress in my 3*s, and am using a much larger variety of those characters. 4*s just sit in the back, very slowly collecting covers and hoping I'll use them some day!

Phaserhawk

The answer is Deadpool Daily Quest

Unknown

I think part of this goes all the way back to the token dilution problem, that they "fixed" with vaulting. Except now it is also affecting 4* land and the effects there are even harsher.

More characters = less chance at each individual character and not just from tokens, from events too. If event rewards are a primary way to get covers and each character is only featured once every 35+ events (except they like to double up for some reason so its twice every 70+ events) 4*s don't even get repeat releases like 3*s. Yes they are in the progressions at 1000, but with 7 characters in the rotation to get one of each color of a single character would take about 2 months if you hit every 1000 pt. pvp progression. If you earned 4 from release it will still be a 6 month slog to get to 13 covers just by hitting the 1000 point pvp progressions which is the only reliable way to get these covers and only then for those who *can* hit them.

At some point something has to give. Extending the rewards to more people wont help this problem.

The simplest solution I can think of is offering choices, which may be a nightmare to code but I don't know. Events will at some point NEED to start asking if you want Black Panther rewards or Mystique? You hit 1000 points, do you need an Electra or a X-force, take your pick. 1st place? Starlord or 4 Thor?

It is not healthy for the game for too many people to open up an event and say, nope don't need any of that today, guess I will farm some iso and call it a day. A choice between rewards would literally double the chances of people being excited about each event.

I just hope the devs recognize this problem and do something to address it before we would need three choices instead of just 2.

GrumpySmurf1002

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Or its time to REALLY shake things up and make this game into a 4v4 or sometimes 5v5 so more characters can fit onto the roster because a duo simply wont cut it anymore.

2 flexible characters - everyone is Xor
3 flexible characters - everyone is Xor + Loki/Hood/Fist
4 flexible characters - everyone is Xor + 2 of Loki/Hood/Fist

etc....

It really wouldn't change much. PvP as it is, everyone will gravitate to one team, regardless of how much flexibility you have. Simulator is a good example, you already pick 3 there and after a while it degenerates into the top 4-5 guys. A 4v4 mode will degenerate the higher up the ladder you go.

You'd literally need a gauntlet type event where each character is one and done to kick the dust off of a lot of characters. Or a Heroic PvP where only 8-10 guys are usable.

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

The answer is Deadpool Daily Quest

Yeah, kinda like how the answer to how to fill a swimming pool is to hand someone a bucket... except in this case, the swimming pool keeps getting bigger and bigger...

GuntherBlobel

It's funny, I think 4* are actually kinda great if you are a 2* player. With just a few covers from random Token pulls, some 4*'s fulfill the role of a 2* or 3* fairly well and add variety to the game, which is good. As a 3* player, though, I do tend to see them as boss "villians" or NPC characters, which I guess is ok. But, I do look at their releases pretty apathetically and tend to skip PvEs that reward them (like now).

You might not expect it, but some of the most negative reactions I've seen on the Forum actually come from 4* players, some of whom spent $1000 on Fury or some other 4* character thinking that they would rule PvP forever. To them, each new powerful 4* is just another cash grab. (I think they're crazy, but whatever.)

SnowcaTT

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

The answer is Deadpool Daily Quest

Yeah, kinda like how the answer to how to fill a swimming pool is to hand someone a bucket... except in this case, the swimming pool keeps getting bigger and bigger...

And what you really want is a swimming mask and fins (4*), but they are nowhere to be found once the pool is full.

fmftint

PVP, nope they never see action
PVE, they are just another team to throw at a node when my A/B teams are down

stowaway

This question feels particularly relevant to me, because in a couple of weeks my X-force is going to be 4/3/1 through SHIELD resupply. That's close enough to useful for me to seriously consider spending HP to at least get him to 5/5/1. But I keep asking myself why?

I'm not super crazy about the PvP format, and the idea of shield hopping just doesn't sound fun to me. I've been basically content with joining PvP in the last few hours, pushing to somewhere between 550 and 650, and calling it a day. Why do I need a fancy X-Force if I'm content merely to be in the top 100? I burned myself out in the Simulator PvE, trying to get top two, just to see if I could. Didn't quite make it. Now I'm looking at what it's going to take to do well in The Hunt, and I just think, "Nope, not gonna happen."

GuntherBlobel

stowaway wrote:

This question feels particularly relevant to me, because in a couple of weeks my X-force is going to be 4/3/1 through SHIELD resupply. That's close enough to useful for me to seriously consider spending HP to at least get him to 5/5/1. But I keep asking myself why?

Yeah, I wouldn't do it if I were you. I had exactly your build when I magically pulled 2 covers in the same week. Ok, so now I have an X-Force, but I still have the most fun playing a variety of 3* teams for a Top 100 finish. With X-Force, I've now got a good shot at Top 25, but the game isn't as fun when X-Force becomes "the team." So even with X-Force, Top 100 is usually where I end up. It really hasn't changed how I play and I haven't hit the 1000 pt progression with him once.

Unknown

Once again the problem boils down to how they've chosen to make their money. They've married themselves to a revenue stream that's dependent on cover rarity and roster expansion, and until they're prepared to move on from that model nothing's going to change.