The case for a 3* or better token and 10pack

MarvelDestiny

rawfsu wrote:

I've been wanting this for some time now, even if it's on a limited basis (i.e. Anniversary week). There comes a point to where it should be possible to filter out all 1* and 2* pulls and narrow it down to 3* and 4* possibilities. PVP and PVE try to help, but are definitely hit and miss as far token draws go. PVP, which used to be a given, has now turned into a shield necessary event for top 100. PVE has gone back to a grindfest and again, token pulls are very iffy. This would be a nice change for those trying to transition to 3* and 4* territory.

My transition has slowed to a crawl. I got bored and annoyed with the constant grind of both PVP & PVE and now almost exclusively play DDQ. The exponentially increasing grind requirement and the time commitment up to and including scheduling my life around the game became silly to me. It got to the point that I dropped from my T100 Alliance into a third-tier feeder Alliance whose only requirement is daily play for the daily reward. I'm not knockin' you guys and gals that do what it takes to rank T10 or T25, it just isn't for me anymore and was burning me out.

So now I just do DDQ, a few Sim battles, and maybe put in a little extra if I have the time and want an offered cover for a particular PVE or PVP. This strategy has renewed my flagging interest. I my be the turtle to everyone else's rabbit but I'll eventually get there.

MarvelDestiny

As for the tokens themselves, I'll mention a recommendation I've made a couple times:

Odds can easily be increased if tokens were offered for smaller groups. Ie, villains, heros, mutants, xmen, etc. For the statistician &/or tactician-minded, tokens based on abilities could be done (tanks, AoE, healers, tile manipulators, ect). Or even by the location of abilities in the character description; first ability tokens, second ability tokens, third ability tokens. I could go on but you get the idea that characters can be grouped in many ways to provide better odds. This would even make the game more interesting and varied.

Unknown

Yeah we need 3* and up token group. I'm hoping this vault thing will help. It stinks when you spend so much time in an event and pull a bunch of Moonstones.

El Satanno

Another good reason why we need something better for 3* covers now is that the 1* and 2* tiers are absolutely trivial to max out. It's been a long, long time since 2* characters started being handed out like candy. Even with the 5 or 6 new characters introduced since I started playing it's still a trifling thing to cover max them just playing either aspect of the game for a short period of time. The 3* lineup has expanded so dramatically over the past several months that it's kinda stupid how difficult it is to get that one cover you need by any means except straight-up buying them for HP.

Basically the game doesn't seem to have been designed at its foundation to have the sort of roster diversity at the 3* or 4* level that it does currently. Starting at tokens and going across the entire reward spectrum, the game is still clearly arranged as if 2* is the general play level and 3*/4* are a trophy level. Tokens aren't the easiest point to start at (I daresay just fiddling with the placement tiers and payouts would demand far less effort) but it would surely not make sad pandas out of us if we could get 500 Iso at minimum for all the time and energy we collectively sink into this thing.

jffdougan

fmftint wrote:

Drummerboycroy wrote:

I guess my main point is, 560+ days later, zero remotely-close-to-covered 3* characters, although DDQ is getting me closer.

tl;dr: Yes, please increase meaningful methods of earning 3* cards

DBC

You are doing something horribly wrong then, I'm on day 299 and I've got 8 maxed and another 20 fully covered 3*s

You assume willingness to spend money. I won't speak for Drummerboycroy, but I'm at day 310, and have exactly 2 completely covered 3* characters (Patch and Sentry). Thanks to DDQ, I now have several more with 10-12 covers.

My current financial situation means that, in 311 days, my total spend here has been between $20 and $30. That's not enough for regular PVP shields when I can't make it back. (I've hit the second HP progression reward in PVP exactly once, for the Blade event that just ended.)

Don't assume that we're "doing something wrong" if, based only on length of play, we aren't regularly scoring t25-type PVP results, and the roster growth that comes with it.

Unknown

Are you talking about a guaranteed 3* reward token? This might increase the frenzy but would be a better reward obviously than a gamble token, but would it devalue winning a good cover from a long event, say?

Personally, I would much rather see a 4* token offered as the main reward for a OvE event, not the top 1 in the communjty but for getting points. At the moment, a 3* is given at, say 40,000 points, somwhy not offer a 4* at 60,000 as well? Sure, increased grinding, but that is what some folks enjoy.

I often get 70,000 points when the max reward is given at 36,000 so feel all I am grinding for is alliance level. That would really help the 4* transition which now feels too slow, as I have only won a single 4* cover since March.

Unknown

Twombley wrote:

Are you talking about a guaranteed 3* reward token? This might increase the frenzy but would be a better reward obviously than a gamble token, but would it devalue winning a good cover from a long event, say?

Personally, I would much rather see a 4* token offered as the main reward for a OvE event, not the top 1 in the communjty but for getting points. At the moment, a 3* is given at, say 40,000 points, somwhy not offer a 4* at 60,000 as well? Sure, increased grinding, but that is what some folks enjoy.

I often get 70,000 points when the max reward is given at 36,000 so feel all I am grinding for is alliance level. That would really help the 4* transition which now feels too slow, as I have only won a single 4* cover since March.

This is pretty much why I stopped PvE, I can hit progression well enough if I care to, but to place anywhere near a 3* or better you're looking at a solid week of intense grinding. I don't think a "casual" game like MPQ really does enough for me to warrant that kind of dedication.

To add to my last post. I just opened my third 10 pack in a row that had 1 3*. Statistically this was better than the last two seasons combined because I got one of the worst 4*s in the game (Star Lord). Last season was a SG Yellow, before that I'm pretty sure it was a Psylocke red. If I'm just unlucky that's one thing, but if I had paid the $20 that pack is "worth" then I'd be furious. I bought a 10 pack ages ago when I was still trying to build 2*s and it was fine then, but they've effectively put me in the position where it's not worth it for me to invest more money into the game. I can buy individual covers, but unless I want to spend about $80 per character, that won't get me anywhere. I don't get why the devs are so opposed to character progress, aside from the fact that they haven't put any effort in to an end game.

fmftint

jffdougan wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Drummerboycroy wrote:

I guess my main point is, 560+ days later, zero remotely-close-to-covered 3* characters, although DDQ is getting me closer.

tl;dr: Yes, please increase meaningful methods of earning 3* cards

DBC

You are doing something horribly wrong then, I'm on day 299 and I've got 8 maxed and another 20 fully covered 3*s

You assume willingness to spend money. I won't speak for Drummerboycroy, but I'm at day 310, and have exactly 2 completely covered 3* characters (Patch and Sentry). Thanks to DDQ, I now have several more with 10-12 covers.

My current financial situation means that, in 311 days, my total spend here has been between $20 and $30. That's not enough for regular PVP shields when I can't make it back. (I've hit the second HP progression reward in PVP exactly once, for the Blade event that just ended.)

Don't assume that we're "doing something wrong" if, based only on length of play, we aren't regularly scoring t25-type PVP results, and the roster growth that comes with it.

no it means willingness to play competitively you don't have to spend $ to compete. I've spent a total of $60 for roster slots only and only during HP sales
play PVE, rank well, level smart, collect covers, iso and hp.

Unknown

fmftint wrote:

jffdougan wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Drummerboycroy wrote:

I guess my main point is, 560+ days later, zero remotely-close-to-covered 3* characters, although DDQ is getting me closer.

tl;dr: Yes, please increase meaningful methods of earning 3* cards

DBC

You are doing something horribly wrong then, I'm on day 299 and I've got 8 maxed and another 20 fully covered 3*s

You assume willingness to spend money. I won't speak for Drummerboycroy, but I'm at day 310, and have exactly 2 completely covered 3* characters (Patch and Sentry). Thanks to DDQ, I now have several more with 10-12 covers.

My current financial situation means that, in 311 days, my total spend here has been between $20 and $30. That's not enough for regular PVP shields when I can't make it back. (I've hit the second HP progression reward in PVP exactly once, for the Blade event that just ended.)

Don't assume that we're "doing something wrong" if, based only on length of play, we aren't regularly scoring t25-type PVP results, and the roster growth that comes with it.

no it means willingness to play competitively you don't have to spend $ to compete. I've spent a total of $60 for roster slots only and only during HP sales
play PVE, rank well, level smart, collect covers, iso and hp.

You're in the wrong here. You can do everything right in MPQ and get screwed over because there is no progression besides Deadpool daily.

Unknown

Guys, this "you're obviously not doing it right" debate isn't really worth having anymore.

I wrote another long response, went and played Marvel Future Fight instead of posting it, was showered with Biometrics (covers), earned a ton more in less than an hour using my auto-healing characters, and slotted two brand new heroes in my reserved free slots (well, they're ALL free slots), before playing 10 matches in PvP, all of which were worth exactly the number of points listed, to earn enough to buy SIX (three from yesterday, in fairness) more covers for a really powerful character... in less than an hour.

If I'm not playing this game correctly, I'll just focus more on games I'm smart enough to play. In lieu of wasting even more time actually writing about the obvious in an online forum, I'd simply recommend playing MFF for a week or so instead, and get back to me on how "fairly" distributed the covers are in MPQ.

Pretty simple actually. I'm going to keep playing MPQ because I love match 3 and Marvel, but these arguments are just too stupid to keep engaging in, and merely playing other games reminds me of that simple fact, over and over again.

Peace.

DBC

optimus2861

El Satanno wrote:

The 3* lineup has expanded so dramatically over the past several months that it's kinda stupid how difficult it is to get that one cover you need by any means except straight-up buying them for HP.

Basically the game doesn't seem to have been designed at its foundation to have the sort of roster diversity at the 3* or 4* level that it does currently. Starting at tokens and going across the entire reward spectrum, the game is still clearly arranged as if 2* is the general play level and 3*/4* are a trophy level.

This.

This is exactly what happens to all of these CCG-style freemium games over a long enough time period. The "deck" gets too diluted, and it becomes much, much harder for late starters in the game to fully collect individual characters. Then, predictably and somewhat unfortunately, the veterans who have all the characters look down their nose at the new players and scoff, "Well I did it this way, so if you can't do it, that's your problem," not understanding the fact that the game experience is very different if you start on day 365 versus if you started on day 1.

One of the best suggestions I've seen on this forum, and I forget where, was that there should be a "beginner 3* PVP" set of events that run in continual rotation, where the 2*->3* transitioners can have a path to reasonably-quickly (say, 90-120 days?) build a set of "starter" 3* characters. They would rotate the same 4-6 characters, have 3* prizes only, 4* characters would be barred from use (perhaps even 3* characters other than the "beginner" set would be barred; the idea is that the everybody-max-3* already should stay out of those brackets). This would allow new players to get a small team of 3* characters up to speed, and then that player can leverage them into getting into the deeper pool of the rest of the 3* characters.

DDQ is great, don't get me wrong, but do the math. Barring taco luck, getting just to 4/3/3 on any one character through DDQ alone requires 270 days, minimum, and that's playing every single day. If you happen to miss that one day where the cover you wanted was up, well, too bad, +90 days until it comes up again.

This game really is in direct competition with Marvel Future Fight, and boy... FF kills it right now. D3 had better be paying attention, and pick up their game.

Vhailorx

I think the problem with this thread (and by extrapolation a significant problem with the structure of the game) is that this is really a debate between two different segments of the player base that have significantly different perspectives of the same system.

It's not about money, it's about free time (both the total amount available and the amount devoted to this game), and (especially) participation in a top alliance.

the 2*-->3* transition has been wretched for quite some time. Early on, there were guaranteed 3* rewards in token packs and lightning rounds, new release characters were offered as rewards multiple times in a row, and 2* rosters could easy finish top 25 in pvp brackets. But since the summer of 2014 it has been quite hard to get lots of covers for 1 3* with a 2* roster. token rates went down, the universe of 3*s went up, and the level shift place 3* land (and thus top pvp play) well above 2* level. In the fall of 2014, vaulting also made it even harder to get 13 covers for any particular 3*. It was very very hard to transition at that point without spending. It would take months of pve grinding and token farming, plus a very healthy dose of luck.

Things are a little bit better now with ddq, but the 3* universe is quite large now, so it can take a long time for any given character to cycle back around. and I have no idea if a 2* roster can get top 100 in pvp these days.

However, once you DO get a solid team of 3*s covered, the game really opens up. finishing top 100 in pvp becomes relatively easy (though maybe not so much now with weekly boosts if you have a short bench). And most importantly, a player willing to put in the time can achieve scores high enough to merc out to or straight up join a top 100 alliance.

A top 100 alliance isn't just 3-5 extra covers a week, it's 3-5 duplicate covers a week, meaning you actually build individual characters much much faster (3-4 depending on whether or not the alliance is pvp only, or also does pve). combined with ddq, the time to cover any single 3* drops from 3-6 months to 1-2 months (and less with some token luck). Additionally, once you have a deep bench of 3*s, the marginal value of adding any new character that isn't on iron first/cyclops/cage level is relatively low.

It's pretty annoying when you only need a handful of 3* covers and repeatedly pull covers you don't need from tokens. But it's much less annoying to pull a useless cover and be "forced" to go back to playing your matches with your go-to team of cyc/khan/cmags or whatever than it is to feel like you are stuck in 2* land dragging around a bevy of useless 1-cover 3*s that have been wasting space for months.

I think that is why these threads always turn into inter-class sniping. Vets just say "you're not doing it right!!!" and transitioners just say "shut up, tiny kitty, you just whale'd it up. no need to rub my face in your giants wads of cash!"

TL;DR: Obi-wan was telling the truth. You are both right. . . from a certain point of view.

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

I think the problem with this thread (and by extrapolation a significant problem with the structure of the game) is that this is really a debate between two different segments of the player base that have significantly different perspectives of the same system.

It's not about money, it's about free time (both the total amount available and the amount devoted to this game), and (especially) participation in a top alliance.

the 2*-->3* transition has been wretched for quite some time. Early on, there were guaranteed 3* rewards in token packs and lightning rounds, new release characters were offered as rewards multiple times in a row, and 2* rosters could easy finish top 25 in pvp brackets. But since the summer of 2014 it has been quite hard to get lots of covers for 1 3* with a 2* roster. token rates went down, the universe of 3*s went up, and the level shift place 3* land (and thus top pvp play) well above 2* level. In the fall of 2014, vaulting also made it even harder to get 13 covers for any particular 3*. It was very very hard to transition at that point without spending. It would take months of pve grinding and token farming, plus a very healthy dose of luck.

Things are a little bit better now with ddq, but the 3* universe is quite large now, so it can take a long time for any given character to cycle back around. and I have no idea if a 2* roster can get top 100 in pvp these days.

However, once you DO get a solid team of 3*s covered, the game really opens up. finishing top 100 in pvp becomes relatively easy (though maybe not so much now with weekly boosts if you have a short bench). And most importantly, a player willing to put in the time can achieve scores high enough to merc out to or straight up join a top 100 alliance.

A top 100 alliance isn't just 3-5 extra covers a week, it's 3-5 duplicate covers a week, meaning you actually build individual characters much much faster (3-4 depending on whether or not the alliance is pvp only, or also does pve). combined with ddq, the time to cover any single 3* drops from 3-6 months to 1-2 months (and less with some token luck). Additionally, once you have a deep bench of 3*s, the marginal value of adding any new character that isn't on iron first/cyclops/cage level is relatively low.

It's pretty annoying when you only need a handful of 3* covers and repeatedly pull covers you don't need from tokens. But it's much less annoying to pull a useless cover and be "forced" to go back to playing your matches with your go-to team of cyc/khan/cmags or whatever than it is to feel like you are stuck in 2* land dragging around a bevy of useless 1-cover 3*s that have been wasting space for months.

I think that is why these threads always turn into inter-class sniping. Vets just say "you're not doing it right!!!" and transitioners just say "shut up, tiny kitty, you just whale'd it up. no need to rub my face in your giants wads of cash!"

TL;DR: Obi-wan was telling the truth. You are both right. . . from a certain point of view.

nice explanation, and I know there's "veteran" pvp brackets and "noob" brackets, but seeing how far I've dropped when unshielded, and the fact that vet brackets top 100 seems to be 450+ pts, I don't think 2* players getting top 100 is a thing anymore.

mr_X

Would like to see special dupe free tokens. Especially in season ten packs.

Not been that unlucky yet but others have been and only got two's or dupes. It is bad enough getting duped on event, tacos etc. Never mind weeks of play.

mjh

Vhailorx wrote:

TL;DR: Obi-wan was telling the truth. You are both right. . . from a certain point of view.

I don't see how this paragraph is saying anything against a 3* or better token / 10pk.

My point still remains that with the sheer number of 3*s you can still pull 10 worthless gold covers, even as a transitioner.

Unknown

mjh wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

TL;DR: Obi-wan was telling the truth. You are both right. . . from a certain point of view.

I don't see how this paragraph is saying anything against a 3* or better token / 10pk.

My point still remains that with the sheer number of 3*s you can still pull 10 worthless gold covers, even as a transitioner.

I didn't say that. Vhia said that: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30619&start=20#p372426

Buret0

1,250 HP for a single token, no featured, 10% chance for a 4*, 70% chance for a 3*, 15% chance for a 1,500 HP bonus, 5% chance for a 2,500 HP bonus.

20% discount on a 10 pack means 10,000 HP for a 10 pack and 40,000 HP for a 42 pack, once a day.

You can use the vault system to make getting the same cover twice in a single season less likely.

The token would be awarded only as the final progression on a season (3 tokens as the 7,500 progression reward) and would otherwise only be available to purchase.

I would be okay with that, otherwise I would need to see a more detailed proposal before I'd have any comment on it.

mjh

Buret0 wrote:

200 for a single token, guaranteed featured cover in 10pk, 10% chance for a 4*, 70% chance for a 3*, 15% chance for a 1,500 bonus, 5% chance for a 2,500 bonus.

No reason to increase the price on this because of what I outlined earlier. You can still get a 10pk of garbage 3*s and more than likely it will happen a lot.

Buret0

mjh wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

1,250 HP for a single token, no featured, 10% chance for a 4*, 70% chance for a 3*, 15% chance for a 1,500 HP bonus, 5% chance for a 2,500 HP bonus.

No reason to increase the price on this because of what I outlined earlier. You can still get a 10pk of garbage 3*s and more than likely it will happen a lot.

You have to look at it like this:

You can currently spend 4000 Hero Points on a ten pack that will give you one, two, or three 3* covers. You cannot choose which covers you are going to get, but the chances are slightly higher for featured. You may already have 5 covers, in which case that 3* cover is just 500 ISO.

You have to look at the pricing structure... they are currently selling specific covers for 3*s at 1,250 a cover. You guarantee that you are going to get the cover that you are looking for on the character that you are looking for. However, you can only buy covers that you already have for characters that you already have.

200 Hero Points for a guaranteed 3*?

A ten pack of 3* covers for 2,000 Hero Points (or less)?

That would break the economy of the game completely. Especially if it also has a chance to get a 4*. No one would buy individual covers that they need for 1,250 if they can get ten 3* covers for 2,000 Hero Points. Any of those covers that were usable essentially saved 1,250 Hero Points, and the unusable covers would be sold off for up to 5,000 ISO.

Your case just doesn't work in the current economy.

Unknown

mjh wrote:

200 for a single token, guaranteed featured cover in 10pk, 10% chance for a 4*, 70% chance for a 3*, 15% chance for a 1,500 bonus, 5% chance for a 2,500 bonus.

No reason to increase the price on this because of what I outlined earlier. You can still get a 10pk of garbage 3*s and more than likely it will happen a lot.

15% * 1500HP = 225 HP. 5% * 2500HP = 125 HP
I would buy nothing but these tokens continuously.