What's new since I left?

Arondite

I quit playing a while back, not as an intentional act of defiance or to express a disdain for the game, but just due to a lack of interest.

So, Carnage had just come out when I stopped. What has happened since then?

Any new releases?
Any new features?
Is the 4-Star race any faster or easier now?
Have there been enough positive changes to justify returning?

morph3us

New releases
The Thing 4* (mid to upper tier 4*)
Ant-Man 4* (mid tier 4*)
Jean Grey 4* (upper tier 4*, likely to be very strong)
Deadpool 4* (too new to assess, but probably mid-upper tier 4*)
Another 4* on the way (likely a certain Avenger with a shield and wings)

Oh, and 1* Spider-Man (who looks like lots of fun, and somewhat ironically, is probably a better character than 3* Spidey).

New features
New interface just released, just for the main splash screen. It's a tad controversial at present, but being tweaked.
Ant-Man was released in a non-competitive PvE for one cover, plus the usual release. The non-competitive PvE was lots of fun, actually, but just really short.
Can't remember if The Vault was around when you quit. It's in DDQ, and is making brief cameos in some PvPs and PvEs while they iron out the wrinkles. Overall, I think it's a good thing.

4* Race
Probably unchanged from since you left. Depending on your roster, 1K is pretty attainable though, and provides an avenue to eventually build up your 4*s.
Whispers from the devs that they are continuing to work on the 4* transition.
Carnage never turned out to be that big, bad scarecrow everyone thought he was going to be.

Enough positive changes to justify returning?
Depends on why you quit. I think it's still fun. There's a 4* meta being developed at present, which looks like fun (ie - Jean Grey counters Prof X; XPool kinda of counters Jean etc). I'm hopeful that we'll start seeing some content that caters to the flood of new 4*s. PvE remains grindy. PvP is a bit more varied with the weekly boosted characters.

SuperSkrull

Not sure if it happened before or after Carnage release but community scaling for PvE is switched off for the foreseeable future, doesn't make competitive play less grindy but node descriptions of trivial, easy, normal, etc. are now more appropriate? One big downer is the shutdown of turul's spoiler thread, on the positive side, the Devs have made more effort in communicating upcoming changes, releases and event/buffs timetable.

babinro

Not much to add here but the fact that our chances of getting 4*'s have increased quite a bit as well.

- There's now a 1300 pvp prog for a 2nd 4* cover. which is the biggest advancement to 4* progression by far.

- Shield Sim now features a 4* at 2000 progression

- New character releases offer 4* cover to top 100 alliance finish now

- DDQ taco system has changed over to the Vault which features 4* covers among other rewards that are more useful.

- 4*'s are easier to obtain in tokens now as well but the chance is so minuscule you'll hardly notice.

Vhailorx

I disagree slightly with babinro about the 1300 4* reward. That cover is too hard/expensive to get for the majority of player, even those with decent 3* rosters. I think this reward is intended as an added carrot for the super-elite players (since 1I was becoming trivially easy for them). So while It has doubled the 4* rate for too PvP players, it has relatively little direct effect on most people, perhaps even less than the 2k shield sim 4* or the higher token odds.

Overall, op, it has become totally clear that 4* land is now the central playing field for the game. That is where all the dev efforts are focused, and 3* land is now a true transition phase. Some, including myself, also anticipate the introduction of 5* characters in the short-to-mid term.

Buret0

Vhailorx wrote:

I disagree slightly with babinro about the 1300 4* reward. That cover is too hard/expensive to get for the majority of player, even those with decent 3* rosters. I think this reward is intended as an added carrot for the super-elite players (since 1I was becoming trivially easy for them). So while It has doubled the 4* rate for too PvP players, it has relatively little direct effect on most people, perhaps even less than the 2k shield sim 4* or the higher token odds.

Overall, op, it has become totally clear that 4* land is now the central playing field for the game. That is where all the dev efforts are focused, and 3* land is now a true transition phase. Some, including myself, also anticipate the introduction of 5* characters in the short-to-mid term.

TBH, the people fighting for 1300 are making it easier to hit 1,000.

GrumpySmurf1002

Vhailorx wrote:

I disagree slightly with babinro about the 1300 4* reward. That cover is too hard/expensive to get for the majority of player, even those with decent 3* rosters.

Yes and no.

This week 1300 is plenty doable with just Cyclops and Fist, both 3*. The expense is another animal, but in the right slice it can be done for as little as 450HP (3-8-3-8).

Take out Cyc and replace with Ragnarok, then yes, you'd have a week where 1300 is rough because the boosted characters stink. Even then, I'm sure there're some people out there just running Cage-Fist or Patch-Loki every PvP.

Buret0

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Yes and no.

This week 1300 is plenty doable with just Cyclops and Fist, both 3*. The expense is another animal, but in the right slice it can be done for as little as 450HP (3-8-3-8).

Take out Cyc and replace with Ragnarok, then yes, you'd have a week where 1300 is rough because the boosted characters stink. Even then, I'm sure there're some people out there just running Cage-Fist or Patch-Loki every PvP.

Yes, I had the easiest run up to 1,000 in the events where Marvel and Cyclops were boosted together. Even easier when Doom was the third because all three characters were Cyclops batteries and all I had to do was pray that the board wasn't green and that the opponent didn't get a cascade.

I didn't think they were still going to be boosted for Ragnarok, but here they are, still champions. I'll probably use Jean Grey and Scarlet What a bit more to climb and then switch over to Marclops.

Edit:

Seed team got knocked around pretty hard when they accidentally made a double match five cascade.

I think the hardest thing I had to do was stop my hand from rage-shaking when I was adding ~12,000 ISO to level him up for the event.

Stax the Foyer

Wow, looking back, there have been some pretty significant changes in a relatively short amount of time.

• Due to the great "Pink or Purple" forum wars, the color has been eliminated from the game, and replaced with Orange. All purple skills remain in the game, but are unusable due to a lack of AP. If you allow Scarlet Witch's blue countdown tile to go off, you are immediately banned from the game for sorcery
• Leaderboards were broken. 
• Community scaling was eliminated, but personal scaling remains in the game, in a slightly modified form. If you use the Professor X winfinite combo to beat three consecutive nodes, you are afflicted with a fairly severe case of psoriasis.
• Mobile and Steam account linkage was introduced.
• Leaderboards were fixed
• Due to massive inflationary pressure, we receive one health pack every second, but the efficacy has been diluted and each health pack only heals three health points. If you purchase the wheelbarrow IAP, you can hold 100,000 health packs. There have been requests to implement a single button that will fill your character's health to full with one press, but for now, a button press is required for each use of a health pack.
• The DDQ Vault has also been tweaked somewhat. If you can clear 6 meters, you win a 4* cover and a gold medal, once your urine test comes back negative.
•  Leaderboards were broken.
•  Juggernaut received a third power. His Orange skill is named Buttbutt, and does single target damage and self-damage for 6 Orange AP. The animation is fairly obscene.
•  People who linked their Mobile and Steam accounts were banned for sorcery.
• "Chillin' With IceIX" was introduced as a monthly hour-long chat with the developers. It takes place via the in-game chat system on the sixth Friday of every month.
• Due to an incident where the developers were coding using voice transcription software, the most recent run of The Hunt included 20 four-hour subs. To date, there have been no complaints, and in fact no responses whatsoever from the pve-focused alliances. Their parents are getting worried.

Overall, some pretty decent changes.

Vhailorx

Yes, higher scores make 1k a bit easier is populous slices. That why I said "little direct effect." it's a marginal improvement.

As for this week being a good week for 1300, that's true only if you have is one fist and cyclops maxed, which is a relatively limited portion of the player base (iron fist has still had only 2 PvP events ever). That's why I said "decent" 3* rosters. I think those that have cyclops and If are either very lucky, or have strong 3* rosters.

Sorry if that wasn't clear from my first post.

sc0ville

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

I disagree slightly with babinro about the 1300 4* reward. That cover is too hard/expensive to get for the majority of player, even those with decent 3* rosters.

Yes and no.

This week 1300 is plenty doable with just Cyclops and Fist, both 3*. The expense is another animal, but in the right slice it can be done for as little as 450HP (3-8-3-8).

Take out Cyc and replace with Ragnarok, then yes, you'd have a week where 1300 is rough because the boosted characters stink. Even then, I'm sure there're some people out there just running Cage-Fist or Patch-Loki every PvP.

I made it to 1300 using exclusively Cyc/IF/doom (3*s) and 3 shields, 3-8-3, I could have used only two, but I got a bit gun shy and only did one fight when I was above 1200.

Buret0

Vhailorx wrote:

Yes, higher scores make 1k a bit easier is populous slices. That why I said "little direct effect." it's a marginal improvement.

As for this week being a good week for 1300, that's true only if you have is one fist and cyclops maxed, which is a relatively limited portion of the player base (iron fist has still had only 2 PvP events ever). That's why I said "decent" 3* rosters. I think those that have cyclops and If are either very lucky, or have strong 3* rosters.

Sorry if that wasn't clear from my first post.

I haven't been able to get purple fist covers, so he's 5/3/5 and waiting for his chance to shine. As a result, he's underlevelled and not ready for PvP use in an event where a single optic blast was taking down 6,000 health and even maxed IFs were pretty much a one-shot (and if you focused on them with match damage, they died as soon as you had 10 AP).

I did have a 5/3/5 Captain Marvel at 166 though. Her energy absorption and tanking for Cyc made the climb even easier than an IF might have. Though GD that cheap 5 ability of his when combined with Cyc.

Malcrof

Vhailorx wrote:

Sorry IF that wasn't clear from my first post.

I wouldn't apologize to Iron Fist, he thinks it is a sign of weakness.

morph3us

@Stax - you basterd, I had a serious meeting to attend after I read your post, and kept on breaking into fits of giggles at inopportune times thinking about "Buttbutt". Too funny.