New characters : sharing an experience

Unknown

I wanted to share my experience and see if many players were feeling the same lately.

Before (Hulkbuster and new MMR) :

- I was making sure I would play the PvEs so that I could get all 3 colours.
- Would buy all covers needed to max characters.
- Would shield hop enough to place T5 no matter what.

Expenses : 1 to 2 Stark Salaries a month

Now :

- Still do my best in PVEs, to rank as high as possible, but won't lose sleep over a PvE. I rarely rank T10/T5 anymore, so I am missing 1 colour.
- Gave up on the "non new release" PvEs as the scaling is so ridiculous I wipe too often and can't play the game at all other than that.
- Don't buy missing covers and don't use the new characters if they aren't levelled enough.

Expenses : nearly F2P (except for roster slots)

What about you ? How has your gameplay experience change over the last couple of months ?

TxMoose

not a vet, but as a mid-*** transitioner, I kicked off my transition 2 months ago buying a stark and putting it into my best pair at the time - Lthor/loki. got 3 covers each. all the rest has been going to slots/shields except for 1 lcap cover for EotS (my 5th red that was frankly critical in my getting that hb cover). so, I'm down to 6500 hp now but with the new pvp scoring, I will be spending more now on **** covers that I really want at the 1000 progressions, so my hp spend will be increasing quite a bit while the scoring system remains. Last season I only did more that a 3hr at the end 3 times, but had a lot of roster slots to add. I'm 1 for 1 hitting 1000, but it was not easy (only 1 maxed guy) and cost me 600 hp doing it. will go for it probably only half the time, so I currently have enough to last a month or so. also, if I get to the point where I have enough iso to max several at once and a couple of top guys are 1 cover away, I might consider spending for that. I had been on a pretty even keel with my pile slowly dwindling (mostly from roster slots), but it could go much faster here in the coming weeks.

edit: curious to know what vets think of a mid-transitioner spending 600hp on a **** for 1000 progression. is it worth it? is it fair now that a much lower roster can get there? I know it used to be much harder.

woopie

I used to buy a Stark Salary every sale or so, but haven't spent anything on the last 2 sales. I do have some Google Play credits that are expiring so I'll probably throw some in the next time one rolls around.

madsalad

I've spent a grand total of $10 USD on this game, and that was $10 I've earned from Google Surveys.

Unknown

I spent some to get an Alliance cover back in the day, and then some for my year's anniversary to get roster slots. I regret both. Well, not really regret, it's not much cash at the end of the day, but looking back I should have realised it was a bit of a waste.

Anyway, won't be spending any more. No need. Half the characters coming out now seem mediocre and I rarely play pve so don't need them for Essentials. In fact I still have HP from my second purchase. I have a nice stash of max 166's and none of the 4*'s make me want to spend that HP on covers, being they are around 7% better than 3*'s.

They genuinely could have had some more cash from me had they not gone the way they have with this game. Doubt it would have been enough to help their profit line mind you

GrumpySmurf1002

I have a couple stages of MPQ life. Expense for my MPQ life is $75, all for roster slots at times of bottleneck. $0 since anniversary week.

As a 3* transition, I was playing every PvE religiously. Mostly top 20, some top 10, few top 2. This was back when a 2* could also hit 700-800 in PvP with a few hops, and so I did. I mostly missed the early 3* wall days, thankfully.

As a developing 3* player, consistent top 25, competitive but not super-aggressive PvE, hopped for the key 4* covers. Caught the tail end of Sentry bombing, missed the 270 twins.

Now (4* transition):
Still consistent top 25. Can climb to 1k on first shot, so just the 8-hr shield, haven't hopped once this season. Almost abandoned competitive PvE (I'm in running for top 10 for Carnage, will be my last for a while, remembering why I don't do this anymore). Mostly logging hours to grind Iso to finish a few 3* and get 4* useful.

Unknown

Interesting so far to see totally different "lifestyles". I am also amazed. But I like it.

Thank you for sharing.

Vankysher

Was deep in the 2* -> 3* Transition.

Before the MMR/PvE changes:

Played PvE competitively managing top 50 or higher for new 4* releases & top 25 for 3*.
Easily hit 400 - 500 in PvP without really needing to shield.

After:
DDQ
Occasional PvE and PvP

I'll say that real life was a bigger factor in my dropping competitive play but all the changes made it a much easier decision.

Unknown

Up until recently, I had never skipped a PVE, and usually finished top ten in new character PVEs and and least went for all progression in the others.

I've skipped the last few PVEs. I barely played in the Gauntlet. I had a trip over the weekend so I couldn't start the Carnage event on time; if a good bracket doesn't open up before it ends, I'm going to miss my first new character launch since I started playing. And it doesn't really bother me. Carnage would likely be a trophy anyway; even if I get his covers from PVPs, it'll take close to a year to complete him in all likelihood.

The game is stale. I'm actually putting more effort into PVP than I have in a while thanks to the availability of 4*s, but if they change the levels for that, I'll probably dial it back too. There's just never any new content to keep things fresh. If they don't start introducing some new content, I may be dropping back to being a fairly casual player. And new characters aren't new content.

And for spending: haven't bought anything since March of last year. I have over 28k HP and almost 250k ISO saved up. There's nothing for me to buy even if I wanted to spend money.

Unknown

Could you not use that HP on Carnage? I mean, I wouldn't, hence my post earlier but you say Carnage would take a year to complete but with your HP stash you could buy the covers that you might get from the pve/inevitable pvp events?

SnowcaTT

Have been FTP since True Healing, so nothing has changed in payment.

Stopped PVE entirely four months (five seasons) ago, in part due to others in alliance wanting to do the same. Between repetition, scaling, now boosted characters almost always needed for both PVE and PVP meaning a lack of health packs - it may have always been impossible to be in top tier in both events as FTP, but if it was possible before I don't know how it could be now.

After stopping it, I realized how much the PVE grind wore on me. So much time spent - life planned around hitting refreshes for seven days in a row? Even when the refreshes went to 8 hours and subs didn't overlap: three times a day x seven days + grind: 21 full clears + 21ish more to grind.....for three 3* covers? (Four with alliance one, if you T5'd....)

Yeah, or (if in a T100 alliance) you can run PVP for three hours and get two covers, three times a week. And put 15-20 minutes into DDQ daily, and get seven covers a week. You probably have to PVE until you are well into 3* transition, but running those events over and over will make you tire of them quickly. The effort put in compared to the rewards won is just terrible in PVE, the time (and timing) it requires makes PVE very unattractive.

Unknown

hermanbloom wrote:

Could you not use that HP on Carnage? I mean, I wouldn't, hence my post earlier but you say Carnage would take a year to complete but with your HP stash you could buy the covers that you might get from the pve/inevitable pvp events?

I'm not spending HP on a character that's going to get nerfed. On top of that, I'd need one cover of each first, and that would take a while. Plus, it would wipe out my HP stash, and I don't like Carnage enough as a character to do that for him.

Unknown

Don't disagree with any of that. Was just curious.

stowaway

I'm at a point in the game where if they want me to spend money, they would have to add some completely new features, or the option to link Steam and mobile accounts (I would pony up ten or twenty dollars for that), or some other "lifestyle" improvement you would have to pay for (increasing the health pack limit, or changing your in-game name).

Roster slots are ridiculously expensive, but HP comes pretty fast. And it's become clear that any cover that's worth buying is a cover that's in danger of being nerfed.

mohio

stowaway wrote:

I'm at a point in the game where if they want me to spend money, they would have to add some completely new features, or the option to link Steam and mobile accounts (I would pony up ten or twenty dollars for that), or some other "lifestyle" improvement you would have to pay for (increasing the health pack limit, or changing your in-game name).

Roster slots are ridiculously expensive, but HP comes pretty fast. And it's become clear that any cover that's worth buying is a cover that's in danger of being nerfed.

Pretty sure you can change your in-game name by just emailing customer support. Never done it myself but I've seen/noticed plenty of people do it in the past.

Bowgentle

mohio wrote:

stowaway wrote:

I'm at a point in the game where if they want me to spend money, they would have to add some completely new features, or the option to link Steam and mobile accounts (I would pony up ten or twenty dollars for that), or some other "lifestyle" improvement you would have to pay for (increasing the health pack limit, or changing your in-game name).

Roster slots are ridiculously expensive, but HP comes pretty fast. And it's become clear that any cover that's worth buying is a cover that's in danger of being nerfed.

Pretty sure you can change your in-game name by just emailing customer support. Never done it myself but I've seen/noticed plenty of people do it in the past.

He wants to link his steam account to mobile, not change his IGN. They don't do that linking anymore, haven't for ages.

PeterGibbons316

My experience has been similar. I began spending money when I realized the power of Winfinte. I actually bought a 42-pack in a Mystique event to get her fully covered. That was actually worth it because it allowed me to place high in every PvE event as there were no nodes I couldn't bring down......just took time. I recently used a Stark Salary to take my IMHB from 3/2/2 to 5/5/2 because I wanted to actually use him before he gets hit with the nerf bat. I also wanted to have a high tier character that not a lot of people were able to use yet. Now I'm to the point where I can usually hit 1000 in PvP, and can do well in PvE if I have the time, but usually prefer to just try to hit the progression rewards (if I need them) and quit. I have very little reason to spend money at this point.

The only thing that might change that for me would be a drop in the cost of ISO. Right now ISO is ridiculously overpriced IMO. It's nearly $200 to max a 3* character where if I focused all my energy on that I could have it done in 2-3 weeks probably. I have all the covers I need to be competitive, what I am lacking is the ISO. And it's just way too expensive to spend real money to get it.

Unknown

I noticed lately I get more enjoyment out of the game when I spend money vs actually playing it...so there's that.

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

mohio wrote:

stowaway wrote:

I'm at a point in the game where if they want me to spend money, they would have to add some completely new features, or the option to link Steam and mobile accounts (I would pony up ten or twenty dollars for that), or some other "lifestyle" improvement you would have to pay for (increasing the health pack limit, or changing your in-game name).

Roster slots are ridiculously expensive, but HP comes pretty fast. And it's become clear that any cover that's worth buying is a cover that's in danger of being nerfed.

Pretty sure you can change your in-game name by just emailing customer support. Never done it myself but I've seen/noticed plenty of people do it in the past.

He wants to link his steam account to mobile, not change his IGN. They don't do that linking anymore, haven't for ages.

Too bad, as that is something that would have interested me.

As for my own spending, I've spent a total of 40 bucks on this game, 30 on my mobile account, 10 on my Steam account. Nothing since December. I'm not a fan of the ever increasing cost for roster space and I find the cost for covers higher then I'd be comfortable in spending. Sorry, but I still compare costs in a FTP game versus a triple-A title release. Heck, I was able to pre-order Arkham Knight on sale for about what I've spent on this game!

Dauthi

I officially shifted my top alliance to "new character PVEs" only.

Personally though, after getting HB I find I have "XForce/Thor syndrome", where all I have to play to stay competitive generally is HB/IF. IF's purple is just too good when paired up with HB. I almost feel like I am Sentry bombing again.

It's going to get old so I hope they do something...

puppychow

Dauthi wrote:

I officially shifted my top alliance to "new character PVEs" only.

Personally though, after getting HB I find I have "XForce/Thor syndrome", where all I have to play to stay competitive generally is HB/IF. IF's purple is just too good when paired up with HB. I almost feel like I am Sentry bombing again.

It's going to get old so I hope they do something...

I think once enough players run the HB/IF combo SOLELY, and D3 stops selling covers again (like in the xf/gt era), THEN D3 will mutilate and neuter HB so completely as to make him weaker then IM40. Watch. It's gonna happen this year.