Collecting data on roster slot upgrade costs

Unknown

[Edit: D3 Have announced they'll be capping roster slot prices at 1000 HP, so I've updated the sheet accordingly, as well as added running totals and two different view tabs at the bottom for easier visualization]

Hello all, I've put together a spreadsheet with the purpose of tracking roster slot price increases.

I thought it might be helpful for figuring out, both for myself and everyone else, how much effort they're willing to put into getting (or buying) more HP for roster slots, and at what point they should start thinking about slimming down their rosters and being more selective of which characters they hold onto.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I stopped the sheet at 200 because that's the highest number roster we know that's theoretically possible, based on dev/testing roster screenshot posted by the devs a few weeks back.

Unknown

Completed with help from scoregasms. Thanks!

MarvelDestiny

Scoregasm is awesome but you gotta watch him, he can be squirrelly.

DFiPL

Is this inclusive of the lowered costs from a while ago? If so, if anybody has an account at the wiki, this page could use some update love:

http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Roster_Slots

Unknown

DFiPL wrote:

Is this inclusive of the lowered costs from a while ago? If so, if anybody has an account at the wiki, this page could use some update love:

http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Roster_Slots

As far as I'm aware it should be. There may be errors here and there, as I was pulling this from multiple sources. I checked the lower numbers, but some of them under 25 might be off slightly, as I stopped somewhere in the teens, but I *think* this should all be current. If you find any errors, feel free to correct them or let me know.

My primary motivation was for higher number roster slot numbers to see where they become prohibitively expensive to keep trying to get the HP for them, and where to start selling off the more useless 2*'s / 3*'s. Hopefully this helps everyone else too!

Bowgentle

I thought it was bad enough that they cost 50 HP more each time, but they jump to _100_ more past 100?
This is insane.
So once we have 100+ characters not even a 1000 HP pull from Deadpool will finance a roster spot.

And after 112 I have the choice of buying a 4* cover for 2500 HP or recruit someone like Bagsilver.

Well played, devs.

Chipster22

Slots 14 through 16 will cost 400hp for all three on my Steam account.

Unknown

So I can buy roster slot 200 or I can get 4-4 covers and a 3 cover. Hmm... Decisions, decisions

Unknown

It's fun to decide who to keep on your team and who not.

At least, that's what I read somewhere.

JVReal

I have 47 spots on my roster, I paid 600 HP each for the last 2, and the next one also is going to cost 600 HP. For whatever that's worth. Thankfully with this 1 week break I was able to buy a spot and finally get LDaken into my roster... of course I missed a bunch of his Daily Deadpool covers...

rixmith

My roster cost is at 800 and that finally convinced me to start trimming unused 1*'s and very underleveled 2*'s. So mBW cHawkeye and Ms. Marvel are gone (I never rostered Yelena or Bagman). My next lowest 2*s are > level 70, so it is hard to dump them because of the possibility of Heroics where they might actually be useful. So I guess mStorm is probably next to go (keep IM, Juggs and Venom for a rainbow 1* team). It is pretty hard to imagine dumping any 3*s since they will no doubt be essentials in PvE and featured in PvP at some point (and the worst ones will likely get buffed). I guess I would have to make that call once I get to the point where slots go up 100 each time, but that is a really long time off.

Unknown

The most useful and simultaneously depressing information I received in a while... lol

Good to know there is a bottleneck on the horizon that I'm not going to be willing to cross, but kind of a bummer.

At least I have an idea of how much "diversity" I can afford...

DBC

Unknown

I was doing some quick math earlier and realized that to buy out all the roster slots to have 1 of every character right now (according to the wiki) would set you back about 30k HP, or about $170 from in app purchases. Obviously you can get by with less from winning bits here and there, but to buy them all in cash would set you back that much without buying a single cover or token pack.

Unknown

Small thing I'd like to add to all this. It's worth noting that roster slot prices were probably set a long, long time ago when the devs first created the game and had no idea if it would actually take off or not. Back then there were far fewer characters and releases were slower. It may have seemed logical to set ever increasing prices on roster slots to save server space from people who might buy 10k slots or something, or alternatively players building up an army of 50 duplicates of each character and never having to worry about health packs.

It's possible they intended to fix it if/when more characters were released, but never got around to it. My takeaway from the data, and from what we know of the direction it goes, is that 1 of 2 things need to happen:

1) devs need to go back to roster prices and set a hard max at around 700/800, or lower, per slot, if they want people to keep getting / upgrading characters they put out

OR

2) players need to plan ahead and decide which characters matter to them, and which to get rid of. This is the way it currently is, but if the devs want people to have to choose what characters to hold onto, they need to create enough incentive to invest in characters (i.e. knowing they won't be overnerfed if they prove to be useful). It also conflicts with them making money if we do this since it means people will be much less willing to go for new characters.

They may NOT have initially intended players to be able to get as many characters as they've now released (when the game started and slots were only a couple hundred HP each), but we're here now, so it's something they need to adjust, given how many unique characters there are now, and how many more they're probably planning to release. It's a simple enough thing to solve, and I think people would be more willing to spend on roster slots if we knew they would stay a reasonable price instead of rising astronomically down the road.

Just want to throw in my .02c there that while the current roster prices at the upper limit are mind-boggling insane, it's at least possible the devs didn't intend it to be that way, and might be willing to fix it if we ask them. So this is me, asking. I hope everyone else will too, and that they'll listen.

GrimSkald

So far, the main response to the rising cost of roster slots has been to given additional streams of HP. They increased HP given out from the Daily Award and they added DPDQ which can give significant amounts of HP. This was nice, but it still doesn't address the main issue - the cost of roster slots continuously increases, so in order to keep pace they need to constantly add new streams of HP. This will have the added effect of making it easier to do other things with HP such as shield, buy boosts, or buy covers. While that would be awesome for the palyers, I suspect that's not what the devs intend.

The devs have also stated they do not intend for players to keep all their characters, but that is frankly tinykitty - the game is designed around diverse rosters. You never know when that particular character will be useful, if not downright essential. Sure, you can also spend money on the game, but this is also a bad option as the cost of roster slots will eventually get higher than a person can afford, much less be willing be play.

These are the real solutions, IMHO:

- cap roster slot costs at some level

- continue to add HP streams, possibly increase the cost of other HP items. The former will unbalance a number of things, the latter will screw over newer players.

- change the game to encourage players to keep leaner rosters. This would include things like retiring Heroics entirely and introducing characters only on the more commonly-kept characters.

SnowcaTT

GrimSkald wrote:

This was nice, but it still doesn't address the main issue - the cost of roster slots continuously increases, so in order to keep pace they need to constantly add new streams of HP. This will have the added effect of making it easier to do other things with HP such as shield, buy boosts, or buy covers. While that would be awesome for the palyers, I suspect that's not what the devs intend.

This. I keep complaining about roster slot spots and people respond: but DDQ! More HP! Not a problem!

That is very short-sighted. With HP costs going up 50 every five characters, and 5+ characters being released every two months.

Unknown

GrimSkald wrote:

These are the real solutions, IMHO:

- cap roster slot costs at some level

- continue to add HP streams, possibly increase the cost of other HP items. The former will unbalance a number of things, the latter will screw over newer players.

- change the game to encourage players to keep leaner rosters. This would include things like retiring Heroics entirely and introducing characters only on the more commonly-kept characters.

I think a better solution would be to add Roster Slot as a possible reward from DPDQ (or all tokens), and at a decent percentage. That is a reward that automatically scales with your experience in the game -- if you have 10 slots or 67 slots, it will be a sweet pull.

Moon Roach

Don't forget that slots past 100 were added only 6 months ago: http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18292&p=241069

And there was a wailing (whaling?) and gnashing of teeth at the cost for slots 100+.

Unknown

Updated with the data for the upcoming roster price cap. Also added running totals and quick view / long view tabs.

I've been slowly working on the lower levels with my alt, but I still need a few levels in the 20's range.