A quick chat with D3 at C2E2

Unknown

I did a quick interview (interrogation?) with D3 at last weekend's C2E2 to learn a bit more about the reasons for the recent changes to the game. They were really cool and honest about what's been working and what they are still tweaking. Here's a link if you want to read a bit further:

http://wp.me/p17Xso-ku7

Nonce Equitaur 2

Very interesting. From your article.

Interesting estimated roster progression timeframe
They also have a guideline on how long the roster transitions take, but the timeline can be impacted on whether a player is free-to-play or if they are in a strong alliance.

Transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Transition to 4* roster – 6 months

I've been playing 1.5 years, and I'm still mostly on a 3* roster. I'm in need of covers for Kingpin, Prof X, Star Lord, Elektra, and Devil Dino.

GrumpySmurf1002

Interesting estimated roster progression timeframe

They also have a guideline on how long the roster transitions take, but the timeline can be impacted on whether a player is free-to-play or if they are in a strong alliance.

Transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Transition to 4* roster – 6 months

Perhaps my definition of transition is different since I’m in a fantastic alliance and I feel like I’m way behind on this timeline! Lol!

OOOOOOOOF.

They're nuts if they think that's the 4* timeline after the MMR changes. The one semi-reliable source of 4* covers (the 1k progression) was chopped off at the knees with the recent MMR changes. I'll compile the data for season 13 shortly, but as an example, the 100th place alliance in Season 13 finished almost 20000 points below the 100th place alliance from Season 12.

CaptainFreaky

Cambear2 wrote:

I did a quick interview (interrogation?) with D3 at last weekend's C2E2 to learn a bit more about the reasons for the recent changes to the game. They were really cool and honest about what's been working and what they are still tweaking. Here's a link if you want to read a bit further:

http://wp.me/p17Xso-ku7

Awesome article - you had me until Yelena!

Not sure about the Dev's since of progression timeframes either - especially since it seems that most of the devs (except Will, who tends to start over often), are barely in 3* land themselves.

But seriously, well done, mate.

LXSandman

It's funny that most of us are immediately commenting on their idea of a time line.

I've been playing for like 6 months. I'm in a great alliance, I play "Alot".... aka way more then a match three game should ever be played. And I don't have a single three star cover maxed. I also don't pay for covers I usually one drop money for roster spots or shields if needed.

6 months to get to 4*??? How much money do they think you would need to spend to do that?

the rest of the article was interesting though...

LXSandman

wirius

Adding my voice here. That 4* transition is completely off. I would say more like 9 months to a year.

Unknown

Maybe they are basing those transitions off after the implementation of DDQ?

GuntherBlobel

There must have been some misinterpretation there concerning those progression timelines. A lot of 2*/3* Rosters have and will use a 3/3/3 X-Force. Does that mean they transitioned to a 4* Roster?

I don't consider myself a 4* player after 1.5 years, but then again, I do have a 5/5/2 X-Force. IW is getting close to finished as well. Fury, Thor, and the others will take another 2 years due to character dilution, though. Maybe they have a DDQ-like solution in mind for 4* characters, because they aren't going to stop releasing characters.

That part aside, the rest of the discussion made perfect sense. That's not going to make anyone feel any better, unfortunately. Everyone understood that they were trampling all over the 2* Rosters every PvP, right?

Roswulf

mango_sentinel wrote:

Maybe they are basing those transitions off after the implementation of DDQ?

Even there, 1-3 months for the 2* to 3* transition is wildly off. Even the high end is not enough to get one of each color cover for a 3* character through DDQ, even if you luck out and pick up a first 3* cover in the opening weeks.

Stax the Foyer

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Interesting estimated roster progression timeframe

They also have a guideline on how long the roster transitions take, but the timeline can be impacted on whether a player is free-to-play or if they are in a strong alliance.

Transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Transition to 4* roster – 6 months

Perhaps my definition of transition is different since I’m in a fantastic alliance and I feel like I’m way behind on this timeline! Lol!

OOOOOOOOF.

They're nuts if they think that's the 4* timeline after the MMR changes. The one semi-reliable source of 4* covers (the 1k progression) was chopped off at the knees with the recent MMR changes. I'll compile the data for season 13 shortly, but as an example, the 100th place alliance in Season 13 finished almost 20000 points below the 100th place alliance from Season 12.

Agreed with the effect of the MMR changes, but even without that it's pretty optimistic.

I mean, that timeline already seems too short on a cover-acquisition basis, but it gets extra crazy when you think about ISO needs.

Ducky

Their response to how quickly transitions should take just screams that they are completely out of touch with the real gameplay experience.

Unknown

Maybe it makes more sense as "start to transition into a N-star roster"

Start transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Start transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Start transition to 4* roster – 6 months

On a side note I'm free-to-play and I recently manage to fully cover my XForce (5/5/3) on day 199. He's only level 130 though so I don't know what star category I actually fall under.

Unknown

This discussion proves my comment that I think their definition of transition is a bit different from the one we might be thinking of. I think of it as when I start to use the next level up, but the developers might be thinking its when you start to collect that level.

GuntherBlobel

Cambear2 wrote:

This discussion proves my comment that I think their definition of transition is a bit different from the one we might be thinking of. I think of it as when I start to use the next level up, but the developers might be thinking its when you start to collect that level.

Yeah, I think that's it, too. On the Forum, characters aren't considered "viable" until cover-maxed. I don't think that is what the Devs think.

In their defense, my 1/1/1 Cyclops was actually pretty damn useful when buffed. Unfortunately, most characters don't play that well when under-covered and just sit the bench for months/years.

Unknown

Regarding the transitions, they're definitely not talking about maxed characters, but probably the point where a player starts using those characters as part of their core team.

Also this one line:

Token draws are “really just random, but it doesn’t feel like it.” Even the developers feel the pain of a string of Moonstone token pulls.

reminds me of:

Eddiemon

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Yeah, I think that's it, too. On the Forum, characters aren't considered "viable" until cover-maxed. I don't think that is what the Devs think.

In their defense, my 1/1/1 Cyclops was actually pretty damn useful when buffed. Unfortunately, most characters don't play that well when under-covered and just sit the bench for months/years.

I concur. When I started using the next tier characters none of them were maxed. The 1* to 2* transition happened when I had maybe 2 covers ofthe same 2*. (Because really at that point I probably only had 5 covers of a 1*).

2 to 3* happened at around the 5 cover mark for a 3*. Their abilities are just that much more interesting and they are that much more durable. Sure, people did get locked into sets like Stormneto if they were min-maxing and read the forums, but if you don't have that setup than a 5 cover Patch or Punisher or Deadpool or Laken etc can really step up your performance. They at least deserve to be in your rotation to reduce Health Pack use.

4* at 6 months is a fantasy dreamed up by the guy in the back seat during the opening of Super Troopers.

El Satanno

Thanks for sharing the article, OP. Enjoy some more pageviews! I like having the chance to read something from the dev team that isn't filtered through one of these big sites that I utterly distrust *cough*IGN*cough*.

Oh, and:

Eddiemon wrote:

4* at 6 months is a fantasy dreamed up by the guy in the back seat during the opening of Super Troopers.

Got me laughing good. Both for truth and comedic value. Bravo.

AaronTheLuigi

They also have a guideline on how long the roster transitions take, but the timeline can be impacted on whether a player is free-to-play or if they are in a strong alliance.

Transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Transition to 4* roster – 6 months

Considering I haven't completed the 3* transition and should be halfway to 4* based on the timeline...

What if I'm just really terrible at this game? What if Moonstone was always the best character and I was to naive to recognize before they improved on her ?

TLCstormz

Go ahead and label me a conspiracy theorist again, but I can only assume that they see all players as PAYING CUSTOMERS. For all we know, the vast majority of players actually DO transition that quickly.....since they pay.

And we couldn't even fault them for assuming that everyone is paying, if the numbers show that most do.

Bowgentle

TLCstormz wrote:

Go ahead and label me a conspiracy theorist again, but I can only assume that they see all players as PAYING CUSTOMERS. For all we know, the vast majority of players actually DO transition that quickly.....since they pay.

And we couldn't even fault them for assuming that everyone is paying, if the numbers show that most do.

How should I pay my way to 4*s when the scaling is SO stacked against me that I'm not able to get a single cover of each colour to start the buying?
My Xavier had two purple for the longest time, even if I wanted to there was no way to whale him up.

I don't think even D3 seriously thinks more than a handful of people buy 42 packs to get their first covers.

babinro

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Very interesting. From your article.

Interesting estimated roster progression timeframe
They also have a guideline on how long the roster transitions take, but the timeline can be impacted on whether a player is free-to-play or if they are in a strong alliance.

Transition to 2* roster – couple of weeks
Transition to 3* roster – 1 to 3 months
Transition to 4* roster – 6 months

I've been playing 1.5 years, and I'm still mostly on a 3* roster. I'm in need of covers for Kingpin, Prof X, Star Lord, Elektra, and Devil Dino.

To give my two cents on this...
The article admits this doesn't assume free to play and those figures suggest exactly that.

I'm an established vet player who hasn't spent any money on Elektra and will only now finish getting her 13th cover after the Made Man pvp. I don't remember her exact release date but it was more or less 6 months back.

Again, this is coming from a free to play standpoint on an established vet account.

This is making a lot of assumptions of course...I'm assuming that 'transition to 4* roster' means having a fully covered ready to go 4* and building up others. They could be defining this as having a 2 or 3 fully covered 3*'s which is theoretically sufficient to START earning 4* covers. These are very different stages of the game and claiming the latter as 6 months on an account that doesn't have to be free to play is certain reasonable.