Question about Growth Industry and 4* rewards

Vhailorx

I don't mean to complain about growth industry. It is fine for what it is, and I applaud the devs for doing it.

But I am confused about the design philosphy at work with 4* land.

Ultra-rarity is great for trophy characters. But 4* land seems to be a real thing now, with 10+ characters now back to back r* released.

And growth industry seems like an attempt to make sure that everyone with a 2* roster gets at least one antman cover.

So why are 4*s still so much harder to get than 3*s? I know that token rates and reward tiers have been increased, but 4*s are still much harder to get than 3*s.

If 4*s are supposed to be hard to get, that's fine, and if 4* land is supposed to be a new tier of okay, then fine. But i dont think demiurge can do both of those things simultaneously. Right now it seems like most people will likely get just a few covers for each 4*, but won't actually get usable 4*s for something like 6 months without extreme luck or purchasing covers. That seems like a very un-fun outcome.

Edit to add constructive suggestion:

The necessary change is awarding multiple,covers for the same character in individual events. The 3* acquisition rate really picks up when you join alliances and start doubling up on covers with alliance rewards. Right now you can't get more than one cover for any 4* in any given event post-release. And with more and more 4*s, it takes a long time to cycle back around.

TxMoose

my hope is that growth industry is a precursor for an eventual monthly/weekly **** event that rewards ****s like ddq does ***s. it may be pie in the sky wishful thinking but hey, I can hope. with a monthly one though, with 10 characters, that is 30 months to cycle through all their covers once, so it ain't perfect, but would definitely help. If they really want a 'transition', a weekly event would be more appropriate where after a year you could add ~2/2/2 to all your ****s. that would be a more realistic transition. I think most vets can sometimes make the 1K progression in pvp too, so together, that could be a **** transition?

side note: if the game is really transitioning to **** play iso needs to be addressed. as I stated elsewhere, when leveling a **** to 220 costs a quarter mil, good luck actually leveling a group of ****s. could be many options including:
* LRs all week
* slight reduction in leveling costs at the higher levels
* reduction of raw iso costs for those who purchase iso - more would consider if it didn't cost so dang much
* double iso event(s)
* increase of base iso award from 20 to ~50

any/all of these would help tremendously. it seems their long-term vision is in **** land, but good luck to the noob getting there when leveling a **** to 220 costs a quarter mil.

JVReal

The pace works for me. I'm just getting up to the level where my 3*'s are usable and half are cover maxed, and 3 are level maxed, and I'm competitive. I have several 4* characters with multiple covers, but not quite usable yet, and I'm ok with that.

Accelerating the 4* rate would put me behind again, and make my 3* feel as useless as my 2* just as they are beginning to be very useful.

The game I played before this had a huge power creep that was out of hand and cards were outdated as quickly as the next event... and it was frustrating to always be behind several tiers and not be able to do anything about it without spending money every week.

I am comfortable with the pace of the transition now... but that is just my personal experience.

I can always use more Iso...

rawfsu

I think it's a move in the right direction, and here's why. I started Enemy of the State, finishing the first day ranked 75 after GRINDING it out for the first phase. With me pushing in PVP to 4k and DDQ going on daily, I pretty much burned out. I'm ranked 488 in Enemy of the State after no play on Saturday (wife's birthday) and am close to not hitting my 4k mark for PVP after a GREAT start. However, thanks to Growth Industry, I know I can still acquire an Ant-Man cover with about 25 days left. Grinding my brain out on Enemy of the State was going to render the same result, albeit a different ability. I'm satisfied with that. I got Thing, but his event was a simple three day and I had all the required characters for that event. It didn't take much work to finish top 150 (I believe?). I have a 3* roster, no maxed 4*'s, and I'm able to compete in PVP, but it took being satisfied with the 10-pack that made the difference. I know with my roster right now, I'm not able to hit 1k, but there was a time I could barely hit 400. All things in due time. I hope this trend with Growth Industry continues, it at LEAST gets you a 4* character to get started on without having to grind out an event 3,4,5 days.

Vhailorx

rawfsu wrote:

I think it's a move in the right direction, and here's why. I started Enemy of the State, finishing the first day ranked 75 after GRINDING it out for the first phase. With me pushing in PVP to 4k and DDQ going on daily, I pretty much burned out. I'm ranked 488 in Enemy of the State after no play on Saturday (wife's birthday) and am close to not hitting my 4k mark for PVP after a GREAT start. However, thanks to Growth Industry, I know I can still acquire an Ant-Man cover with about 25 days left. Grinding my brain out on Enemy of the State was going to render the same result, albeit a different ability. I'm satisfied with that. I got Thing, but his event was a simple three day and I had all the required characters for that event. It didn't take much work to finish top 150 (I believe?). I have a 3* roster, no maxed 4*'s, and I'm able to compete in PVP, but it took being satisfied with the 10-pack that made the difference. I know with my roster right now, I'm not able to hit 1k, but there was a time I could barely hit 400. All things in due time. I hope this trend with Growth Industry continues, it at LEAST gets you a 4* character to get started on without having to grind out an event 3,4,5 days.

I agree that having growth industry is an improvement on NOT having growth industry. My real point is that I see a tension between the design choices that lead to growth industry ("we want everyone to get a taste"), and the design choices that lead to the standard 4* acquisition policy ("4*s are awesome and rare and should be hard to get. so there are way fewer 4* covers in pve releases events, and you can only ever get one cover per pvp event").

If demiurge tries to keep doing BOTH of those things, then people will end up with rosters full of woefully undercovered 4*s, which is a really bad outcome. I get that chasing characters is what keeps the game fresh, so demiurge can't give out too many covers too fast. But forcing people to wait 4-8 months to build a single character is no fun at all (especially when those characters languish unused in very expensive roster slots for all that time).