Dilemma of an old noob (Day 356)

Unknown

As I approached the 1 year mark, I look back on all the various changes that have occurred in MPQ. I’m nowhere as experienced as the early adopters and consider myself pretty bad at the game. I prowl the forum but don’t really have enough smarts to actually make constructive posts.

My first memories of MPQ were doing PVP with environmental tiles (is that what they were called?) before they were replaced by team-ups. My first ever PVE event was a heroic with Captain Marvel as a reward and the first ever PVP was Sentry.

After fluffing around for a while in the Prologues, I discovered the forum, read the guides and improved (sort of improved). I’ve played mainly PVE up til this point. The new PVP season will coincide with my 1 year mark and now I’m in a dilemma. I’ve max covers for all my 3* except for BP, IF and Bullseye. My hoarding will allow me to bring 12 or 13 of them 166. But if I spread my ISO out, I can bring all of them up to 140 (I think). Also I have and X-Farce at 5/4/3 if it means anything. So what should I do moving forward???

If you’ve thought of the dumbest things you can do in MPQ, I would have probably done it. Here’s a short list of my noobness (for giggles):
- Used to think that the rewards that flashed in and out when you select a node in PVP predetermines the rewards you get.
- Thought that PVP meant that you get to play with another human player so avoided it like the plague
- Held onto healthpacks never knowing that they actually do regenerate until a couple of months into the game
- Thought that Boosts costed HP so never used boost til the end of last year
- Sold many 3* and 2* thinking my 1* Hawkeye and 1* IM35 can take on the world
- Hung around in Prologue and never really thought , never really joining an alliance until

Thanks all around to past and present members of Worlds Finest and whoever took the time to read this little blip. Cheers!

liminal_lad

I relate to so many things you said here. I'd like to add

* sold 3 star characters not realizing how rare they were because I didn't want to buy hero points.

The forums really helped me learn how the game actually works!

Houtro

You want to get better placements in PVP right!? I suggest to ISO boost some of the major characters, with the feat. character + week boosted characters you will get nice points = more rewards, but beware this will increase your scaling in PVE I think
I'm a big noob I did a lot of weird things in the early days like the health packs classics (didn't know about regen.) or that I would lose the cover in the downed countdown end or even buying IM35 covers. I rarely hoard any thing and always spend the ISO +1 level.

Good thing: Your almost at

Unknown

Yes I would like to perform better in PVP. And if community scaling stays dead, levelling the characters up would not be that bad a thing. My only problem is whether or not to max a third of the roster out or bring everyone of them to 140.

Vhailorx

Yes, this game doesn't always explain things very well to new players.

I am only about ten days behind your OP, but I have never seen a single environmental tile. I must have just missed them!

I also made many of the same mistakes (and probably invented some new mistakes of my own too):

I also didn't understand healthpacks or boosts for quite some time.

I think I used up my initial hoard of 20+ healthpacks sometime in my second or third month of play.

I never boosted until I was 7 months in and had a burgeoning 3* roster (though I had figured out what boosts were and how to use them a month or two earlier)

I definitely opened tokens too aggressively and had to sell off some 3*s early on before I realized that patiently stockpiling useless 1-4 cover 3*s was the only way to get anywhere.

I stuck to the prologue for far too long before dipping my toes into story and PVP.

I didn't use shields at all until sometime around month 4, and didn't learn the better strategies for shielding until a month or two later, and probably lost out on many 3* covers as a result.

I leveled up characters as high as they could go as soon as possible before realizing that stockpiling ISO for only the most useful characters at first was a better strategy.

I bought some covers with HP before realizing that direct-purchase covers were only marginally better than throwing money away on packs.

Overall, I would say that it took me about 3-4 months to transition into a more deliberate player that hoarded iso, hp, and tokens like there was no tomorrow, prioritized the stronger characters over the weaker ones, joined an alliance, and started picking and choosing which events to grind.

and Dathremar: take everyone to 140. That is MIUCH more cost effective right now, and with the weekly boosts, level 140s become 200+ which is enough to perform fairly well in PVP (even if it may require some work to get 1k reliably)

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

Yes, this game doesn't always explain things very well to new players.
and Dathremar: take everyone to 140. That is MIUCH more cost effective right now, and with the weekly boosts, level 140s become 200+ which is enough to perform fairly well in PVP (even if it may require some work to get 1k reliably)

Thanks Vhailorx. When you see your alliance mates hit that 1000 or 1300 point progression, it gets tempting to max out some than level evenly. But like you said, levelling evenly probably might be the smarter option. Also I'm glad I'm not alone in making those silly mistakes in the beginning as well .

Vhailorx

I think that the cornerstone 3*s are worth leveling above 140. So Cage, Cyclops, Iron Fist, Khan, Lazy Thor, Black Panther, maybe Switch, "the one I am forgetting," etc. You won't regret bringing 3 or 4 of those above 140, but in general you should be able to get 1k with a bit of work if you have a mostly 140 roster. That would make your best pve team something like 250/200/200. Those levels will invite attacks above 900, but you should be able climb to the 800s or low 900s, drop a shield, and then hop once or twice to 1k. a bit expensive, but still cheaper than buying the 4* cover outright. worth it for good 4*s maybe?

Unknown

I'll probably have to read up on how hopping works again. I've only ever used the 3 hour shields.

dr tinykittylove

dathremar wrote:

Yes I would like to perform better in PVP. And if community scaling stays dead, levelling the characters up would not be that bad a thing. My only problem is whether or not to max a third of the roster out or bring everyone of them to 140.

Bring up only the best 3*s as others suggested to 140 so you have some iso in reserve, then level up whoever is buffed for the week that you will use in pvp. No need to mass level anyone that you won't use regularly, do it only when they are boosted.

If pve/pve look like they are working well for you, you can try bringing them up higher. My cast of 155s do well enough for me to hit 1k in pvp regularly, or 1.3k if there's something I want, and it's still fairly trivial to get good placement in pve.

TxMoose

I have unknowingly developed tiers for characters. I have 3 maxed and one that is one cover away at 153 - fist, thor, mags and loki at 153. then I have a handful of top guys at 140 (cage, Cyclops, grocket, cap, doom, now torch and soon to include patch and hood). I have some mid tier guys at 120 (120 is cheap) and lower level guys at 104. I'm slowly promoting characters here and there as the right covers come in and iso comes in. it seems to work well as I hit 1000 about 1/4 of the time and when I don't its as much about life getting in the way or covers I don't care to chase and not being able to do it. made it to 1K in the Cyclops event without running a boosted and am in good shape in the torch event to do the same. fist really helps, especially when the featured has a black power.

edit: I also did many of the noob things you did (health packs, waiting for a character I want to flash on a pvp, etc.). pretty sure many/most did, so don't feel bad. if I had the time I'd love to see how fast I could get to ** on a new acct, but this takes enough time as it is.

puppychow

If iso is an issue, you could get by leveling up your core 3 to 120. Leveling cost is relatively cheap up to this level, and if they are part of the blessed weekly group, you'll get more out of them in pvp and pve events. So personally I would suggest leveling more characters to 120 than a few to 140.

moogles85

dathremar wrote:

- Held onto healthpacks never knowing that they actually do regenerate until a couple of months into the game

I played the game for a year (still finishing top 5 in PvE and top 25 in PvP) before realizing that health packs regenerate. Relying on LCap/IM40 (1 yellow) in majority of the Pve nodes.

After playing for so long without health packs, using health packs makes the game feels like easy mode.

Unknown

@Txmoose
Its good to know that its actually viable to get to 1000 points without having a ton of max characters. Thanks .

@puppychow
I do have all my 3* at 120. Problem is that my ISO stockpile is only up to 1.15 million at the moment. Clearly only enough for 12 or 13 if my maths aren't off.

@moogles85
Dude how have you been playing?? You should definitely record your games and upload them. Its definitely an achievement. Out of curiosity, how many healthpacks do you have now?

PeterGibbons316

Vhailorx wrote:

I think that the cornerstone 3*s are worth leveling above 140. So Cage, Cyclops, Iron Fist, Khan, Lazy Thor, Black Panther, maybe Switch, "the one I am forgetting," etc. You won't regret bringing 3 or 4 of those above 140, but in general you should be able to get 1k with a bit of work if you have a mostly 140 roster. That would make your best pve team something like 250/200/200. Those levels will invite attacks above 900, but you should be able climb to the 800s or low 900s, drop a shield, and then hop once or twice to 1k. a bit expensive, but still cheaper than buying the 4* cover outright. worth it for good 4*s maybe?

I agree with this. I'll add that while a characters effectiveness changes very little between level 140 and 166, it's impact on defense is huge. If I'm seeing 290/240/240 every time I skip, and all of a sudden a 250/200/200 team pops up, I'm fighting that second team every time. So while climbing to 1000 with level 140 characters is doable, be aware that you will get beat back down pretty quick once you get there.

Unknown

I leveled up characters as high as they could go as soon as possible before realizing that stockpiling ISO for only the most useful characters at first was a better strategy.