A big "Thank you" to D3 for introducing 2 Star Essentials.

babinro

When it comes to any change in this game I try to objectively ask myself 'does this change improve the game as a whole?'

When looking at this decision objectively the answer is a definitive yes.

I get why some people would be upset or how they might view this as a cash grab but I also think they are looking at this issue through the eyes of an established player.

By design, PvE is a single mode of play that's all encompassing for all tiers of players be it a week 1 player or a day 500 one. By building all required nodes around 3* characters you are instantly placing a major barrier on newer players to progress. Having 2* featured characters respects the greater player base rather than looking on a 2* gamer as an afterthought.

You could argue that they could still make prog rewards without these featured nodes and that's fair. I'd counter argue and say that you could still easily make top 50 without one of the featured nodes from time to time.

I'm not exactly thrilled about this decision but I can't help but view it as something that's positive for the game as a whole.

JVReal

At first I found it irritating, but now I find it makes sense.

You want to spread out the essential points. You require the 4* so that people that were able to grind the previous PVE and get the reward get a benefit even from one cover.

You then require a 3* so that the vast majority of other players can have a shot at some essential points too and not be totally locked out because they missed being top 50 in PVE or in a top 100 Alliance.

You then require a 2* so that the newer players have a shot since they have a limited roster and don't have the space for the 3* collection they will eventually have.

I think it's a great compromise over 3*, 4*, 4* like it's been before... or the same 3*, 3*, 3*. Setting it up to 2*, 3*, 4* is a great balance that will reward the most diverse roster the most, wherever that player falls in the newbie-vet spectrum.

This time around, I only have the 2*, so without that one, I'd have NO essential points because I took the last PVE off as a break.

The Essentials will always frustrate those who don't have the characters, for whatever reason they don't have it. Spreading out the type of characters required actually increases the number of people who can have access to them and, to me, actually accomplishes what it was intended to be... bonus points for having a specific character... a reward for having a diverse roster. It's essential not because it's essential to getting top 10, but it's essential because it requires a specific character to play.

Not Everyone should be able to do all the essentials, otherwise they would be completely useless and may as well be just 3 more regular nodes for people to complain about being scaled out of.

I think the change was good.

Unknown

orionpeace wrote:

I guess they got upset that we were ditching their badly designed characters. So, they thought, hey, how can we MAKE them keep characters they know they don't need to play the game.

We got it! Let's randomly require 2* and 4* characters in PvE! That way we can sell even more roster spots.

I'm sure their data mining will show that having more characters you don't use and roster spots that are just dead weight is fun!

"I guess they got upset that we were ditching their badly designed characters."

Nope. They aren't upset; this is by design. The Devs said that they want the playerbase to "make difficult roster decisions."

No difficult decision for me. I barely play MPQ now, after 500+ days.

orionpeace

@babrino @JVReal

I get what you are both saying, but you are sorely misguided, in my opinion.

This does NOT give a 2* player a shot at anything in PvE. Before, if they competed in the previous PvE they could have 3 out of 3 for the essentials. Now, they may only have 1 out of 3. And if you don't have all of the essentials for any given PvE you can kiss top 50 goodbye. And for a desired new character, it is likely that top 150 is completely out of reach.

For the transitioning player, from 2* to 3*, they are struggling with a growing roster and they have, more than likely, made at least a few hard choices and sold off a few 2* because they no longer need them. They have 3* versions that are far superior. Now, they have to go back and get them, buying more roster spots, if they can. And if they can't? They might only have 1 of the 3 essentials and struggle to rank highly or just give up in frustration because their "progress" feels too severely hampered.

This is not good for the game or the players. This is only beneficial to D3 who have come up with a rather fiendish way to force every player to keep every character, no matter how bad they are. I say fiendish, because they have managed to cloak what clearly seems a cash grab in something that some people actually feel will help them. They will learn differently.

D3 has previously stated that they are aware of costs of roster spots and knows they are an issue. Yet, they have made 2 moves that demonstrate that they want you to buy and keep a roster spot for every single character. PvP now has a rotating list of boosted characters and PvE now requires a random 2*, 3* and 4*.

That X-Force you sold off because he was worth more in HP/ISO than he was on your roster? Guess what, you're going to need to go get another. Not because he got better. Not because they tweaked him. But simply because he will eventually be required as an essential for an event that you want to compete in.

There is nothing good for the game in any of this except for those that already have an excessive roster and the will to buy ever more roster spots.

firethorne

MikeHock wrote:

Nope. They aren't upset; this is by design. The Devs said that they want the playerbase to "make difficult roster decisions."

No difficult decision for me. I barely play MPQ now, after 500+ days.

I remember them saying that about rosters. They did clearly forget one thing. Every time they force a player into a "difficult decision" that the player can wind up regretting, the decision of whether or not to keep playing gets easier.

JVReal

orionpeace wrote:

@babrino @JVReal

I get what you are both saying, but you are sorely misguided, in my opinion.

This does NOT give a 2* player a shot at anything in PvE. Before, if they competed in the previous PvE they could have 3 out of 3 for the essentials. Now, they may only have 1 out of 3. And if you don't have all of the essentials for any given PvE you can kiss top 50 goodbye. And for a desired new character, it is likely that top 150 is completely out of reach.

For the transitioning player, from 2* to 3*, they are struggling with a growing roster and they have, more than likely, made at least a few hard choices and sold off a few 2* because they no longer need them. They have 3* versions that are far superior. Now, they have to go back and get them, buying more roster spots, if they can. And if they can't? They might only have 1 of the 3 essentials and struggle to rank highly or just give up in frustration because their "progress" feels too severely hampered.

I hear you, and I do believe the ideal move for them is to allow any 'version' of that character to be used, and to have the 2* version boosted so he's comparable to the unboosted 3*.

tanis3303

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. Overall, I get it, it makes sense. It probably should have been this way from the beginning if they wanted PvE to be a mode designed for all comers. But to spring it on the player base with literally NO warning, when they have to know players are selling off characters they don't need anymore to make room for the ever increasing stable of 3* and 4* characters because no one can afford 850+ HP every week for a new slot? That's a Richard move, and poor form. There was an announcement about streamlining the PvE format, why wasn't this mentioned? You were going to get negative feedback either way, whether you announced it or not, but giving us some forewarning that we're going to need characters that we've probably sold would have at least gained them some goodwill in the process. Throwing it at us unannounced, and quite probably locking a large group of players out of nodes for a new character PvE is not the way to gain trust from your players, and trust and goodwill are two things these devs desperately need these days.

That said, I pulled a Purple Bagman from a Lightning Round battle yesterday!
There was much rejoicing.

Unknown

orionpeace wrote:

This does NOT give a 2* player a shot at anything in PvE.

This gives any < 3* player who happens to have a 2* cover a shot at progression without playing like a maniac. Now that people know, many players are going to hold on to the 2* covers that are dropping from both PVP and PVE progressions so they have the essential for the next PVE. I think most of the anger was caused from taking people by surprise, and so we either went without or had to grind PVP hoping for the drop. It does suck that many of us now are going to hold 2 roster slots for heroes that we're going to sell off next round (1 - 2* hero, 1 - 3* hero).

I do think it benefits the newer player a lot. What's the odds a random 2* roster has a random 3* character? If they didn't hit t150 last round, with nearly 40 - 3* now, that odds aren't that good. They'd be locked out of all 3 nodes. At least with this method, there's the sort of progression for a newer player. "I now have one node unlocked; when my roster gets better I'll have 2 nodes unlocked."

I do find it weird that it puts 3* back into a roster progression mode for pve. I feel like, "I have almost all the 3* heroes, but now you're telling me that there's a 4* essential node and I have almost no chance to win that cover before it's required? tinykitty!" At the same time, if I had never known of the old system, I'd probably find this system ok, if it weren't for the fact that it's super hard to find that 4*; probably have to hit 1000 in progression? Was IW the reward in PVP lately anyways?

fmftint

2*s I now have to recollect because they no longer warranted a roster slot
Human Torch
Daken
Magneto

Malcrof

fmftint wrote:

2*s I now have to recollect because they no longer warranted a roster slot
Human Torch
Daken
Magneto

I am keeping 1 slot for the 2 star essentials, and just keeping the 2* progression covers from the PVE.. i have a feeling that is how it is going to let us know who we need.

Sell 2* you didn't need except for current PVE, get a cover from PVE, hold it until next PVE, recruit until PVE over, sell, repeat.

That way only 1 slot needed, and you don't have to worry about sinking iso into it.

optimus2861

Arondite wrote:

In a freemium game, there's essentially -got- to be a way to spend money to kickstart your progress - but money should be just that ; a kickstarter. It should never be a requirement, especially not an ongoing, continuous and ever-increasing requirement.

I understand your naivety. I shared it once. This game isn't my first freemium rodeo. They all work like this. They entice you to spend money, and give you a power boost. How intoxicating! Then that boost wears off. Now you have to spend money again. Another boost! It wears off again. You stop spending money for a while. You stagnate. The game gets hard. You feel the pull to spend money again....

This game is slow in pumping out new characters/cards compared to others I've played, too (Transformers: Legends, Blood Brothers, Star Wars: Force Collection). And when you do get a strong character fully built, he's not immediately power-crept into oblivion by the new shiny. And the (almost) whales-only 4* class of characters doesn't totally blast the lower classes into pieces as in all those other games, either (I gave up all of those games for that very reason; the top tiers of cards/characters ran roughshod over everything else, and it just kept expanding & getting worse over time).

If DeNA were developing this game, the 4* would obliterate the 3*, they'd probably have moved on to 5* or even 6* by now (who would in turn obliterate the 4*), they'd be pumping out multiple new characters every event, and they'd be buffing new characters only every event to really make you feel the "buy now!" pressure on tokens.

If Konami were developing, we'd have 5 versions of Doctor Doom at 4* level alone (if not 5*), plus another 2 or 3 at 3*, and strangely only one or two mediocre Spideys (it was pretty stupid to see how many 5* Darth Maul cards they pumped into the game before getting around to making a decent 5* Luke).

So.. take the good with the bad. This game could be a lot worse.

Buret0

Phantron wrote:

Some of the 2* are actually quite playable when boosted to 150. I only have a problem with guys who have no purpose of being played (like Bullseye) that still has to be there. I don't care if a guy sucks. For example Vision sucks, but he has the standard HP, so at least he can go take a Headbutt and make himself useful. A character like Bullseye who has a lower level cap by design will have a hard time to even match something to take a Headbutt for the team because his match strength is likely way below the rest of the characters you're using.

Bullseye is actually a really useful and powerful character for a transitioner in PvE. When boosted, each time anyone made a purple match he was adding a protect tile that (iirc) was about 150 strength.

If you combine him with Scarlet Witch, purple is getting matched like crazy.
If you combine him with Iron Fist, you are getting your black matches like crazy (while saving up more than 12 Black for the IF moves).

His double crit tile creation deals about 5,000 damage if you drop it right (and have a high level character in the party), and often can be used to generate calculated crit tile cascades to refill your AP (and deal more crit damage), deal with special tiles, and wipe out a single enemy.

You take next to no damage from matches, even with strike tiles present. You avoid attack tile damage without needing to use a skill. With enough protect tiles available, you can even severely reduce AoE damage (like Reality Storm in the SW event).

While Bullseye may not stand out in late transition, he's a solid choice when boosted and can help you get through a lot of PvE events without using med packs.

And if you have 30 crit boosts saved up, as I often do, even a 50% increase in crit damage while he's out there with Iron Fist is going to lead to party wiping power.

Buret0

JVReal wrote:

orionpeace wrote:

@babrino @JVReal

I get what you are both saying, but you are sorely misguided, in my opinion.

This does NOT give a 2* player a shot at anything in PvE. Before, if they competed in the previous PvE they could have 3 out of 3 for the essentials. Now, they may only have 1 out of 3. And if you don't have all of the essentials for any given PvE you can kiss top 50 goodbye. And for a desired new character, it is likely that top 150 is completely out of reach.

For the transitioning player, from 2* to 3*, they are struggling with a growing roster and they have, more than likely, made at least a few hard choices and sold off a few 2* because they no longer need them. They have 3* versions that are far superior. Now, they have to go back and get them, buying more roster spots, if they can. And if they can't? They might only have 1 of the 3 essentials and struggle to rank highly or just give up in frustration because their "progress" feels too severely hampered.

I hear you, and I do believe the ideal move for them is to allow any 'version' of that character to be used, and to have the 2* version boosted so he's comparable to the unboosted 3*.

If that's the case, they need to buff 2* Cap's damage output. Even at level 150 his red power wasn't clearing 1,300 damage.

The real question is, why did they make 3* versions of 2* characters that did exactly the same thing, but way better (and then give them a huge hitpoint and damage boost to regular matches as well)?

At least when they made 3* Storm, Ms. Marvel (s), Black Widow (for all three iterations), and (to a different extent) 2* Hawkeye, they made them significantly different from their previous iteration in abilities.

Dev #1: We need another Thor for 3* land.
Dev #2: I already designed it.
Dev #1: But this is just 2* Thor!
Dev #2: Yeah, but way better.
Dev #1: So why would anyone collect both covers, aren't we losing money?
Dev #2: We wait until most of the people have transitioned to the 3* version, then we make the 2* version a required character. They'll be forced to carry both and buy more roster spaces, or be forced to enter very high level nodes with weak and under leveled versions of their 3* character.
Dev #1: High five!

SnowcaTT

Nivrax wrote:

This is the thing vets were asking for when they wanted advantage over newbie rosters. It's not directed at 2* players, as required 4* shows. It's not directed at transitioners, as they don't have enough HP for all 2*s when trying to squeeze every 3* for DDQ. The only people it directly benefit is those with extreme wide roster with all 4*s and either all 2*s collected or amassed HP bank.

Even though I'm fortunate enough to be in that group (all 4*s, majority 2*s, 9k HP bank) and it gives me easier time competing with others, I still don't really like it, and it seems I'm not alone.

It's hard to see how this is directed at any transitioners.

If you are 2*->3* transitioner, you probably don't have the 4* to do that essential.
If you are 3*->4* transitioner, you probably have hard enough scaling an under-leveled 4* is going to make that node nearly impossible.
If you are 4* heavy (or 3*->4*), you possibly don't have the 2* to do that essential.

optimus2861 wrote:

I understand your naivety. I shared it once. This game isn't my first freemium rodeo. They all work like this. They entice you to spend money, and give you a power boost. How intoxicating! Then that boost wears off. Now you have to spend money again. Another boost! It wears off again. You stop spending money for a while. You stagnate. The game gets hard. You feel the pull to spend money again....

I certainly went into this game as my first FtP understanding the environment, they are all "Pay to Win". But making 4* essential (have to keep them, even though you'll never cover them unless you pay!) and 2* essential (hoping to not pay for those roster spots? Hah!)...

I actually hadn't played a PVE for two weeks, hopped in and realized the boosted characters for PVP (which you pretty much have to play to stand a chance) are the exact same in the PVE - so you can't possibly have enough health packs. Great, another place to pay!

This is quickly becoming a "Pay to play" game, rather than the typical "Pay to win".

Unknown

After thinking about this some more, if this eventually led to a 4* PVE Progression reward which was hard to get yet still achievable without having the 4* essential, I'd be ok with it.

Dauthi

babinro wrote:

By design, PvE is a single mode of play that's all encompassing for all tiers of players be it a week 1 player or a day 500 one. By building all required nodes around 3* characters you are instantly placing a major barrier on newer players to progress. Having 2* featured characters respects the greater player base rather than looking on a 2* gamer as an afterthought.

You could argue that they could still make prog rewards without these featured nodes and that's fair. I'd counter argue and say that you could still easily make top 50 without one of the featured nodes from time to time.

I'm not exactly thrilled about this decision but I can't help but view it as something that's positive for the game as a whole.

The only problem with this logic is it asks the question: why don't they have interchangeable 2*/3*s if this is their goal? It would have exactly the same intended value that you are pointing too, just without us having to spend HP on roster slots. They proved they can, so why won't they? Instead they take the extra time to make sure the 3* alternative is locked out.

Malcrof

Dauthi wrote:

babinro wrote:

By design, PvE is a single mode of play that's all encompassing for all tiers of players be it a week 1 player or a day 500 one. By building all required nodes around 3* characters you are instantly placing a major barrier on newer players to progress. Having 2* featured characters respects the greater player base rather than looking on a 2* gamer as an afterthought.

You could argue that they could still make prog rewards without these featured nodes and that's fair. I'd counter argue and say that you could still easily make top 50 without one of the featured nodes from time to time.

I'm not exactly thrilled about this decision but I can't help but view it as something that's positive for the game as a whole.

The only problem with this logic is it asks the question: why don't they have interchangeable 2*/3*s if this is their goal? It would have exactly the same intended value that you are pointing too, just without us having to spend HP on roster slots. They proved they can, so why won't they? Instead they take the extra time to make sure the 3* alternative is locked out.

Or, why not have different levels of the event? When you sign up, you are given choices based on your roster.. Easy/Intermediate/Hard.. so you only compete against like players. This way, Easy, 2* essentials, Intermediate 3* essentials, Hard 4* essentials, rewards are the same.. This way, we create a real path for 4* transitioning, give the new peeps their own stomping ground to be new peeps, and let us transitioners not lose to someone with a max level 81 roster in placement.

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

The only problem with this logic is it asks the question: why don't they have interchangeable 2*/3*s if this is their goal? It would have exactly the same intended value that you are pointing too, just without us having to spend HP on roster slots. They proved they can, so why won't they? Instead they take the extra time to make sure the 3* alternative is locked out.

One possible explanation is that they don't want 1* heroes usable for essentials. eg Hawkeye, Black Widow, Storm have 1* equivalents. It seems they have essential characters programmed in as either a specific incarnation of a character OR any version of the character. They don't seem to have something that only allows the 2* and 3* version of a character, but not the 1*.

The other answer is it rewards people who buy lots of roster slots.

Malcrof wrote:

Or, why not have different levels of the event? When you sign up, you are given choices based on your roster.. Easy/Intermediate/Hard.. so you only compete against like players. This way, Easy, 2* essentials, Intermediate 3* essentials, Hard 4* essentials, rewards are the same.. This way, we create a real path for 4* transitioning, give the new peeps their own stomping ground to be new peeps, and let us transitioners not lose to someone with a max level 81 roster in placement.

Simplicity and more correct sharding. With the current ranking system it lets most people fall within the rewards bracket they deserve, with a lesser chance of creating death shards. Further, this automatically places people already in difficulty shards. Otherwise, compare to any game with manual difficulties, and there's a lot of people who want to feel like they're the best. This reminds me of a story about my friend who was playing XCOM. When he started, he picked hardcore difficulty, saying "Yeah... I'm hardcore," and then he was promptly curbstomped. So he picked "hard" saying, "I'm still pretty hardcore," and then a couple missions in it was too hard for him. So he ended up playing on normal. Few people want to be just 'normal', especially when they pride themselves on their gaming prowess.

Having difficulty levels opens up so many cans of worms. Some hardcore players will jump into easy brackets just to trounce the competition. Some people might try an event at a difficulty harder than normal, and then realize it's too hard so quit for the week, or how ever long the event lasts. If that player isn't coming back daily for a week, there's a decent chance the game will lose that player.

TxMoose

Malcrof wrote:

fmftint wrote:

2*s I now have to recollect because they no longer warranted a roster slot
Human Torch
Daken
Magneto

I am keeping 1 slot for the 2 star essentials, and just keeping the 2* progression covers from the PVE.. i have a feeling that is how it is going to let us know who we need.

Sell 2* you didn't need except for current PVE, get a cover from PVE, hold it until next PVE, recruit until PVE over, sell, repeat.

That way only 1 slot needed, and you don't have to worry about sinking iso into it.

if they threw us a bone and added a select feature on the 'covers waiting to be recruited' page, it would help a ton (then add a delete selected covers button under/above the sell all button). selling each cover one by one is a huge pain...like a kidney stone or something. seriously.

the only people this truly helps are whales/collectors and those with 60+ slots (for now, will be growing every 1.5 weeks or so - for now I'd say 60+ slots qualifies you as a collector). yes, I can save a cover by not selling and probably get a 1/2/- cap marvel at some point for an essential, but what good is she? will be a 2 against 3 battle and better hope the node isn't scaled funky. heroics are even harder with limited rosters - at least this one they made the ** a stronger character, but one that has a *** lazy version, so many established *** guys already cut him.

side note - I don't mind little daken but I don't have the ***version worth anything for now (he is low health but I'm mostly playing with lvl 100 guys for now anyway). over 2000 damage for 5 blue isn't bad for a ** and does more damage than the consensus 5/5/3 configuration of Ldaken.

Dauthi

daibar wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

The only problem with this logic is it asks the question: why don't they have interchangeable 2*/3*s if this is their goal? It would have exactly the same intended value that you are pointing too, just without us having to spend HP on roster slots. They proved they can, so why won't they? Instead they take the extra time to make sure the 3* alternative is locked out.

One possible explanation is that they don't want 1* heroes usable for essentials. eg Hawkeye, Black Widow, Storm have 1* equivalents. It seems they have essential characters programmed in as either a specific incarnation of a character OR any version of the character. They don't seem to have something that only allows the 2* and 3* version of a character, but not the 1*.

The other answer is it rewards people who buy lots of roster slots.

They take the extra time to lock out the 3* equivalents, why not do the same to 1*s? In all honesty, I think it would be a great idea though to let folks use 1*s for essentials anyways.