Upcoming Test: Powered-Up Characters in Versus

Der_Lex

simonsez wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

Because for someone who's only 'mildly annoyed' about this, you do seem to be complaining about it a lot.

You must have a low tolerance for annoyance too if you think that was a lot.

Annoyance can be very annoying, you know.

No need to be defensive, I'm just genuinely surprised by the many complaints (in general, not just yours, and despite the earlier comment it was not my intention to single you out) this little pvp experiment is getting, especially concerning Ares, because I personally don't feel it affects the game all that much, or at least the initial climbing portion of a pvp. If anything, I was actually pretty happy with the large amount of loaner Ht/ares/2* Daken or Cap Teams I ran into until the 400-500 point mark or so, because as long as you deny your opponent green and yellow, those teams make for quick, easy points.

Unknown

I opened the Hotshot, Johnny Storm PvP event last night and I noticed that Ares is boosted to somewhere around level 150ish, giving him 9000+ health. WTH? Is this an Ares event or a Johnny Storm event. I'll pass on events like this.

Thanks for releasing Lazy Daken from the vault and then throwing his rewards into an experimental event (that's sarcasm, btw).

Unknown

Dcmone1 wrote:

No thanks, this is ****.
Anyone who's been playing this game a while is taking a serious hit

Keep season events as before...
Have this kind of thing inbetween seasons - then it won't mess with our season scores

I think it's a rubbish time to 'test' this out. Could've waited for the season break no??

Bolded for emphasis. Stop conducting experiments during seasons!

Der_Lex

MikeHock wrote:

Dcmone1 wrote:

No thanks, this is ****.
Anyone who's been playing this game a while is taking a serious hit

Keep season events as before...
Have this kind of thing inbetween seasons - then it won't mess with our season scores

I think it's a rubbish time to 'test' this out. Could've waited for the season break no??

Bolded for emphasis. Stop conducting experiments during seasons!

The problem with that is that between-season events most likely don't have the same number of players as events during a season, so that probably won't give them the data they need.

That being said, this really is something that should have been announced well in advance (at season start, for example) instead of springing it on people like this.

ErickTheRed

I'm generally negative about this test. For reference, I have 6 2* characters at 94, and my highest 3* has 5 covers. Ares is not leveled yet, but fortunately I have 4 covers on Torch so he was somewhat useful. I found this PvP harder than usual, but still was able to hit 400.

The good: I certainly saw different match-ups and had to experiment a bit and understand how different characters play out. The highlight for me happened a couple of times, where Patch would get off an insane Berserker Rage downing 1-2 people. Then my Cap would stun him and down him over the next few turns. New experiences are good.

The bad: I felt like I had less choice in general. I had to play with Torch, and essentially had to play with Cap as he was the boosted 2* I had at max level. So I am really just picking one character that fits with those 2. Going forward, it feels like this system would reduce the enjoyment around planning ahead for my roster. By far the most important factor is if you happen to have the boosted characters, and there's nothing I can do about that short of slowly getting everyone.

ErickTheRed

I'm generally negative about this test. For reference, I have 6 2* characters at 94, and my highest 3* has 5 covers. Ares is not leveled yet, but fortunately I have 4 covers on Torch so he was somewhat useful. I found this PvP harder than usual, but still was able to hit 400.

The good: I certainly saw different match-ups and had to experiment a bit and understand how different characters play out. The highlight for me happened a couple of times, where Patch would get off an insane Berserker Rage downing 1-2 people. Then my Cap would stun him and down him over the next few turns. New experiences are good.

The bad: I felt like I had less choice in general. I had to play with Torch, and essentially had to play with Cap as he was the boosted 2* I had at max level. So I am really just picking one character that fits with those 2. Going forward, it feels like this system would reduce the enjoyment around planning ahead for my roster. By far the most important factor is if you happen to have the boosted characters, and there's nothing I can do about that short of slowly getting everyone.

Also the level boosts really warp the characters. I'd prefer to have them be more constant and work my way up rather than having characters randomly temporarily jump up a tier.

Unknown

I found that playing with 2 boosted characters didn't make sense if it was better to play with 1 boosted and 1 not boosted.

There seemed to be plenty of people who played characters with substandard synergy boosted characters simply because they were boosted! Did not bother me one bit -> those players were easier pickings. I did find it harder to figure out who to use against other characters. Also, I could actually use non-maxed boosted characters in battles -> see what they would be like when I have more covers and iso.

This was way more fun; I think I used over a dozen characters compared to the 7-8 I normally use.

Scoregasms

Looks like there are more positive reactions to this than negative, which I can concede is a step in the right direction. However, I'm a bit confused by folks definition of "diversity" though. To me this means me as a player I can now choose whatever characters I want to play with to compete, but this experiment may change the meta with who you are facing, but that choice isn't necessarily there as it's still only the "buffed" player list I see now.

For me in Hot Shots, I started facing off against super annoying Ares only to move on to insane Patch/Loki combos (seriously.. a straight up TBT for 9K+?!?), still some Ares here too and bit of Hood mixed in. Yes, I saw less XF and rarely any 4hor's, but let's be honest, even without this PVP experiment, we were going to see a lot less 4hor in end game PVP. The PVP buffed list had almost nothing to do with 4hor being taken off the top of the mountain and more with how she got her knees cut out from beneath her with her nerfs (whether warranted or not).

Granted, I'm not a vet, I'm at 141 days played, so I'm not a newbie either? At least, I don't think so, I do have fully covered XFW and 4Hor, but only leveled to 192 (plan is to get them to 220 once I get enough ISO) and I never planned to fully max them given the insane cost to do so. I do have a decent mix of maxed 3* too, but other than Hood, none were on the buffed list, so I was sort of caught in the middle here for this experiment. My HT is only level 75, so he's not helping much, I was forced to use an under leveled XF with either 4hor or Hood to compete depending on where I was in the climb. Before, my 192 level for XF wasn't a big deal, but was very much a glaring disadvantage here.

I'm normally a 800-950 (sometimes 1K if I really want it) kinda PVP player, but was only able to get to 650 this time, which is OK given the circumstances. But if it's gonna be a roulette of chance on who's buffed each week, it brings a lot of inconsistency for players like myself who started playing less than 6 months ago (which is a big percentage of the player base nowadays). Early on, thanks to these very forums, I knew who to focus on to get covers and level to compete in both PVE and PVP, which was accomplished for the most part. I consider myself more a PVE player who PVPs on the side TBH, but I do enjoy the relatively quick and less grindy nature of PVP as a break from PVE, but with the new Shield CDs, I tend to only use a couple and then be done with PVP.

Sure, most of the folks in my days played range are still in the 2-3* transition, so they can use Ares to punch above what they normally do and the folks who have been around a while with a mature/developed roster now have way more options to PVP with, which granted is a great thing for them. All the work/effort and real world $ I put in to develop my current roster seems to have seriously devalued it with this experiment. I also am having a hard time trying to justify the need for a 4* tier if this buffing 3* to the 4* tier mechanic is going to be permanent. Before you ask, yes, I read NP's thread on the benefits of it, just confirms it's great for veterans and great for 2* transitioners, but not so much for the in-betweeners that were having success.

I do have a fully covered (though not optimal) Fury at 90, along with not covered Prof X, IW, Elektra and Starlord, but other than Fury/Prof X, the rest are pretty low priority. Given their cost to level, if this change is here to stay, I'll probably forget about the 4* and just get my 3* leveled (except for Prof X, he does seem like a baller). Most of my 3* are in the 100 range with many mostly covered but still at their base 40 level. There's only so much ISO to earn and I tend to focus on a couple at a time based on PVE featured. After a year played, my roster will be a lot more developed, but this change seems to really benefit the extremes more than those in the middle (early 2* transitioners and longer-term developed roster players).

If anything, this change is going to lower my PVP expectations by a large margin unless I get lucky with some buffed characters. This next PVP will hopefully be different since I do have a max Lazy Daken, which should be waaaay better than my baby HT was. Only time will tell, but for a player in my situation, this was a not a change I personally liked or benefitted from. Perhaps in a few months, I can better benefit from it, but I won't be able to compete as much for covers in PVP like I used to do so.

Anyway, apologies for the relatively unfiltered, rambling message format, this is an odd topic to respond to since I may be in the minority here, but felt a different perspective could be added to the discussion.

Unknown

Sure.. except there was a ton of optimal synergy in the boosted characters as well. LThor/Hood, Patch/Loki, Patch/IM40, LThor/Loki, Prof X/Thor, Fury/Patch, HT/Loki/Hood. Using something else is just handicapping yourself of a free boost. It would be one thing if the boosted characters were awful but they boosted like half the top 10.

Scoregasms

Lerysh wrote:

Sure.. except there was a ton of optimal synergy in the boosted characters as well. LThor/Hood, Patch/Loki, Patch/IM40, LThor/Loki, Prof X/Thor, Fury/Patch, HT/Loki/Hood. Using something else is just handicapping yourself of a free boost. It would be one thing if the boosted characters were awful but they boosted like half the top 10.

Lol, more comes down to timing for this event, maybe in another few months, I could've better benefitted, but my usable, max 3* roster includes Lazy Cap, Lazy Daken, Sentry, Hood, Hulk and Cage. So, all the combos you listed, Hood is pretty much the only one I could use. There was no legitimate reason for me to focus on leveling my Patch if I have XFW, pretty much the same with Lazy Thor when I do have 4hor, though, I'm thinking of investing ISO into my 3/5/5 Lazy Thor, probably change him to 5/5/3 instead too given the nerfs.

Again, it's great for those who have that roster diversity to better experiment, but for someone like myself who hasn't been playing as long, it's not the greatest change, especially considering I was playing at a competitive level in PVP before. And, for all those combos you listed, I only saw Ares/Patch/Loki/Hood consistently.

Smith13

This is just like any other card/cover/character F2P games out there. They bring you in, you play, you spend money if you like, but once you collect all the 2* cards, then move onto the 3* cards and buy all of those up, then they have to flood 4* cards in order to get you to pay again. Why bother giving away all the 3* covers if it isn't moving toward that? I used to play a different game, Hellfire, and for poops and smiles I downloaded it again the other day just to see what changes they've had. When I left you could build a nice deck of cards with 3*s that leveling and evolving turned into 4* cards. Since I hadn't played in over a year, the same deck is like what a 2* deck was like back in the day. Now they have 4, 5, and 6* cards that are the big rewards, because let's face it, if anyone plays and plays and spends money, they are eventually going to have every card/cover/character that is put out and the developers are going to cater to them and continue to put out new characters for them to buy up. It's all about the money, which is fine, I'll not lie, I spend from time to time on here. But there is never going to be an end, yes MPQ might take longer to move over to 4* covers (only two when I first started playing, I think there are 6 or 7 now?) but the slower they drag it out, the more money they can make. Bottom line, there will never be an endgame. Just when you think you have them all, they'll make a 5* cover, then the 3*s will be the new 2*s. Same equation in all F2P games. Just saying.

Off topic, kinda, I know, but everyone is talking about diversity and such, which will not happen as long as there are covers better than others. It's just going to take longer for MPQ because everything is slow played (leveling, collecting). Other games give you rewards faster but make you pay to play in other ways. MPQ wants you to pay for everything: covers, shields, health, Iso8, character slots...

Der_Lex

Lerysh wrote:

Sure.. except there was a ton of optimal synergy in the boosted characters as well. LThor/Hood, Patch/Loki, Patch/IM40, LThor/Loki, Prof X/Thor, Fury/Patch, HT/Loki/Hood. Using something else is just handicapping yourself of a free boost. It would be one thing if the boosted characters were awful but they boosted like half the top 10.

If we get Ragnarok for a final PvP, of the season, I think he and a high-level Fury are going to be a very, very nasty combo as well.

Unknown

hi

just come you give my point of view
This new system is a **** !!

players who have max 4 * and players in transition 2 * > 3 * are much more benefit than others !!

optimus2861

pabasa130 wrote:

I understand the need for this in theory, as there is a need to add diversity to the opponents you face in PvP, and no longer dominated by 4Thor Xforce.

However as a firmly-entrenched 2*-3* transitioner (day 140), I'm currently not quite happy with what I'm ending up with. I've intentionally kept my 3* at around level 100 until I get like 10 more 3* to a more usable level. Hence my buffed characters are still far below max buffed.

I'm still facing the same problem as before:

Before change : 166 wall at 400-500 points
After change: 280 wall at 400-500 points.

Yup. I take back my little "happy dance" from last night. The wall is still there for we 2* -> 3* transitioners, it just became a 280 LThor/Patch wall instead of a 166-whoever wall. And running into the opposing 170 Ares guarantees you eat a health pack or two.

Big ol' nothingburger. I still couldn't hit 400 points.

Fortunately I hit an HP reward in Gauntlet so I unlocked my next roster slot that way.

Dauthi

This new system makes the transition to 4* insanely hard. Here are my thoughts on it:


-- The jump from 166 to 280 for 3*s scales better than 270 to 330 for 4*s. Also, why are 3*s gaining 114 levels compared to 4*s 60? In fact, they get the largest boost compared to any group. 1* boosts 50. 2* boosts 76. So we have a steady increase until you get to 4*s who boost worse than 2*s suddenly. Why?

-- There aren't enough good 4*s. Usually the transition gets easier as you obtain more of the tier you need (3*, 2* etc) but in this case the only characters you can benefit from are few and in between (Xavier/Xforce). This is because the 4* boost isn't good enough to compensate for mediocre 4* characters vs top tier 3* characters that get boosted.

--Your 4* has to be maxed. Before, you could get some bang for you buck with uncompleted 4*s, in fact this is the case with any other tier. Since the boost is so weak and 3* is so strong, you need as much as you can get to compete.

-- If you have one of the good 4*s, but they are not buffed, you are no longer a 4* transitioner. They have essentially removed all your progress you worked hard for, because that character will likely be worse than a top tier boosted 3*.

-- 4* transitioners now have to compete with 3* transitioners. This happens because all they need is 2 of their 3*s to be decent while boosted and your one or two 4*s not be buffed. Imagine if 2* transitioners could compete against 3* transitioner's prizes. It makes no sense, right?

For me, while I usually was able to hit 900 without shielding, I could only hit 800 before needing one (I was gaining 30 then losing 30 about 3 times before I gave up). This is double the amount of shield hops I would normally need. I was using 166 Loki and LThor, and 150 Torch.

I had fun, but 4*s are going to be out of sight unless my XForce is buffed, or I throw down a lot of HP. After the 4* Thor nerf this is a real kick in the face to 4* transitioners.

teknofyl

aesthetocyst wrote:

... and boost no chars with significant defensive, beyond patch heal, and prof x's synergy (which very few players have yet).

I suppose they wanted to hedge, do what they could to get players to like the test, by boosting toons most players would already have invested some in.

If the first batch had been all dogs, the feedback would be less positive.

Rig the test to boost chance of desired result.

While I don't really think of it as "fixing the experiment" it's 100% accurate that the boosted characters were the cream o' the crop for the most part. Next week they could be all dogs. I'm still not clear on if it's a rotation, random or hand-selected. This one seemed hand-selected. Whatever, I'm just glad I got my 1k black XF.

Unknown

I feel that the generic 3* boost versus featured is too close (290 vs 280). If we're keeping the generic boost as is then the featured character should be boosted to level 332 (double), and 4*s should be boosted to level 432 (60% more levels). Just make sure X Force is never selected even though that'd still be more balanced than the system before since X Force gains relatively little damage from those 60% more levels. This should put the featured solidly as always the strongest guys outside of gross imbalances (e.g. nothing's ever going to help Beast to become awesome). Not sure if the 4* are appropriately powerful at level 432 but at least they'd look intimidating and that's as good as anything else in this game.

In general it's obviously a lot harder to climb because you can no longer count on having a particularly overpowered character to pull you through. Now even if you have X Force other people can have an acceptable alternative. It doesn't really matter even if your overpowered character is boosted because normally they're already strong enough that people won't fighting with you. If X Force is on the buffed list, for example, it's going to have a relatively little impact on whether someone's fighting you or not since the guys who fight him are all very strong to begin with and probably understands that a small buff won't change much, and the guys who are afraid to fight him wouldn't fight him after a buff anyway. There may need to be another round of PvP progression reward adjustment but it's too early to tell at this point. That said, the current system makes all 4* that isn't X Force pretty much irrelevent and since the only reason to place high in PvP tends to be for 4* covers, it probably doesn't matter very much from a progression point of view.

Unknown

I was thinking some of the same thoughts Phantron just mentioned myself. I was one of those people who was never able to gain 4 stars consistently (first because I didn't have Sentry until right before he was nerfed, and later because I didn't have xforce). But the progression being lowered to 1000 helped a lot.

This event, I noticed a few things.

1) The change actually seemed to diversify teams a bit. I mean, sure, there was still xforce, but there were top teams that were ht/patch/loki or ht/3thor/hood, as well as xforce teams. My xforce is not fully covered, but I had patch/loki and 3thor/hood, so this made battles in this event somewhat easier for me, long time 3 to 4 star transitioner.

2) Points seemed much harder to get because of matchups. Starting from about 800, nearly all my opponents were only worth 3-5 points. I would have to cycle through 20-30 skips, at various times while shielded, to find people even at 22-27 points to prepare for my next jump. In the past, you could easily find people in the low 30's, a little harder for the 40's and 50's.

So I agree with Phantron, progression rewards might have to be adjusted simply because it's too harder to find people to fight with even reasonable points, much less good points.

3) I was also thinking about the featured character and whether or not they should be boosted more than everyone else.

Unknown

I noticed several posts mentioning that it makes it harder for 3 star transitioners, but I can't bring myself to agree. For someone like myself, who has been in the 3 to 4 star transition for months, it seems much easier. Before Sentry, I had a decent 3 star roster going. Patch, then LazyCap, 3 star Thor, The Hood, LazyDaken. Enough to be on the top end. Then Sentry made all of that pointless. I had to level Sentry. When I got Sentry, he got nerfed, Xforce became the new must-have. During these months, your roster will naturally accumulate other characters.

For those who have truly been in transition, a diverse roster will finally help you get 4 stars. It's not "another wall." If you didn't have the best 3 stars, I doubt you were going to be able to fight through the wall of xforce/4thor's at the top anyway.

Just my two cents.

pabasa130

AznLyte wrote:

I noticed several posts mentioning that it makes it harder for 3 star transitioners, but I can't bring myself to agree. For someone like myself, who has been in the 3 to 4 star transition for months, it seems much easier. Before Sentry, I had a decent 3 star roster going. Patch, then LazyCap, 3 star Thor, The Hood, LazyDaken. Enough to be on the top end. Then Sentry made all of that pointless. I had to level Sentry. When I got Sentry, he got nerfed, Xforce became the new must-have. During these months, your roster will naturally accumulate other characters.

For those who have truly been in transition, a diverse roster will finally help you get 4 stars. It's not "another wall." If you didn't have the best 3 stars, I doubt you were going to be able to fight through the wall of xforce/4thor's at the top anyway.

Just my two cents.

I'd just like to clarify that I am a 2*-3* transitioner, not a 3* to 4* transitioner. My top four characters are 2/4/3 R&G, 4/4/3 3*Thor, 4/2/3 Blade and 5/5/3 Hood, all kept at level 110 to prevent overscaling in PvE.

Before the test, due to my underlevelled roster, my wall was level 166 characters which I started to face from 400-500 points. After breaching 500 points then I started to face 4hor/xforce. And as you correctly assumed, I was never able to fight through the wall anyway.

In the present test environment, my wall at 400-500 points is 280 characters, and my best characters after buffs are at 160-180. I still can't breach the 500 point wall, and even if I did, my underlevelled characters make me an easy target if I choose to stay unshielded. The only difference is that it's no longer 4hor/xforce every single skip, and I suppose that's a good thing.

Just reiterating, this change does not help 2*-3* transitioners. It just helps to add variety to the wall that I'll be facing in my climb.