3* vs 4* Characters - an analysis and opinion

GrimSkald

I apologize if this has been done to death - I was on vacation the week before and catching up last week, so I haven't been real attentive of the forums. I don't think it has, I skimmed through the topics a few times.

So the release of the Sam Wilson Captain America as a 4* marks the sixth 4* in a row they've released as a new character. This will bring our total number of 4*s to 15 - half-again what it was when they increased the odds. I find this extremely troubling as I find it difficult to max out a 4* character. To give it some context, I'll add info about myself:

I'm on day 497. I have a 67 character roster with all 3* and 4* characters, a handful of 2*s, and 2 1*s. As of right now, all my 3*s are max covered save for Bullseye (12 covers,) and IM40 (intentionally held at 5/5/1.) Most of these characters are optimal builds - the only significant cover I'm waiting on is SW blue (she's at 5/4/4.)

I have two cover-maxed 4*s - X-Force and IMHB. Both have good builds - I spent HP on X-Force (months before the Nerf - I didn't feel cheated,) and just lucked into the IMHB covers between my rocking alliance, the compensitory Ultron 10-pack, and token pulls. After those two, I have 12 covers on IW (a poor 5/2/5,) 11 on Nick (a meh 4/3/4,) and 10 on Carnage, Thor, and Electra. So I'm kind of getting there, but you can see it's really slow going.

I consider myself a fairly serious player - I can make 1000 so long as I have time to dedicate to the game, and I've made 1300 several times. I'm not die-hard, though. The problem is the more 4*s are out there, the harder it will be for us to max out the ones we have. This wouldn't be a problem if many people were close to maxxing out their 4*s, but I strongly suspect that's not the case. Sure, whales are gonna whale, and the players who routinely make 1st place in PVP and/or PVE will be ahead of the curve, but the rate at which the 4*s are coming out is way faster than anyone can keep up with, I think.

Not only this, but the larger the 4* pool, the less likely any of these will be boosted and/or required in a PVE. Lets face facts - some characters are better than others. Some are a lot better. The only point to having these sub-par characters around is because they'll be boosted/required eventually. It also makes it absurdly difficult to pull one by chance - right now there are 12 4*s in the token packs - they haven't updated them with Jean or X-Force yet - and the chance is .3%. When they increased the chance on 4*s it was actually closer to %.34, now it's down to around %.28, when three more are added it will be %.22. So we're talking about a chance of any particular cover at less than one in one thousand, and dropping continously.

A lot of my play has revolved around getting a good 3* roster. Now, I've got one, I'm frankly getting a bit bored. One of the thrills of the game was opening a token pack and getting something I needed. Now, the chance of that is around one in thirty three or so - less really since there are a number of 4* covers I don't need. Sure, I could get that Bullseye purple I need, but whatevs - he's not that great and he'll come around one way or another. SW blue would be better, but again, I'll get it sooner or later.

This game has been centered around 3* characters - they are the featured characters of the vast majority of PVPs, they are the decent prize pool out of most PVPs and PVEs (.2% of players is not a statistically important prize pool,) and they are the largest boosted group of characters. Centering the game around 4* characters will require a substantial rewrite of the game. Is that a bad thing? Probably - having it centered around 4*s will require adding a 5* tier and I think that will kill the interest for most new players.

Vhailorx

Yup, all true. I have been making similar posts for the last few weeks.

4* rarity/price structure doesn't really work well when 4*s are the main end-game field of play.

Demiurge really needs to provide more opportunities to earn more than one cover for a given 4* in a single event. Its the only way to let people build at a reasonable rate.

So let's start seeing more 4* placement rewards in both pve and pvp, and let's see some 4* pvp events repeat. And let's add a daily quest equivalent for 4*s. And the weakest 3*s should be sandboxed (taken out of tokens and earnable only from PvP match rewards); 40 is too many for an intermediate tier of play.

And because those changes will have a negative impact on whales, they should,probably introduce 5*s too.

simonsez

Vhailorx wrote:

And because those changes will have a negative impact on whales, they should,probably introduce 5*s too.

And then we end up exactly where we are now?

Vhailorx

simonsez wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

And because those changes will have a negative impact on whales, they should,probably introduce 5*s too.

And then we end up exactly where we are now?

Yes and no.

4*s were completely fine until sometime between September and November 2014. That's when xforce was buffed and 4*thor was released. Prior to that time, 3*s completely dominated the meta. 4*s existed as a trophy item, but end game play was 3* play. Vets worked on their 3* rosters and whales chased 4*s. It is absolutely impossible to serve both demographics simultaneously (to say nothing of newbies).

That's the core problem that skald is highlighting: e*a are hard to get because demiurge doesn't want to make things too easy for whales, but that means they are too hard to get for "regular" vets. That's a real problem now that diurge wants to move the endgame to 4* land.

The only workable solution is to have an ultra-rare reward tier for whales to chase while making 4*s a reasonable goal for vets (maybe 1-2 months to build each new release rather than 3-6). 5*s are a straightforward and easy way to solve this problem.

JVReal

Take your time and don't rush the game. It's lasted this long because it takes a while to transition and level. Make it last.

I believe I have 40 3* characters, only just got my 8th one to 166. The rest are between 80+ to 150.

I have 13 4*, none of which are playable or leveled past 96.

The longer it takes for 4* to get maxed, the longer my 3* roster will remain viable, and for me, still fairly fresh into 3* land and putting my toes into the 4* transition waters, I would hate to see my 3* roster suddenly demoted because people want to rush the 4* meta and even try to push 5* as a solution.

Presenting a 5* card as a solution is asking for trouble and is introducing power creep. You are complaining about the 4* pace yet in the same breath ask that they introduce yet another tier?

Unknown

I'm not sure the 5* level is required just yet. It's not because I disagree with the posts made here in any significant way, I don't.

The truth is that we need many more 4* covers for them to qualify as their own tier. The fact that they are becoming hard to cover is a really good thing. Remember when they were impossible? It's getting easier to earn them, it's never been easy to cover them and there should be at least the same amount of 5* that there are 4* currently before they do.

4* covers are moving to become the new meat and potatoes of MPQ but cannot cover that position yet. I'm sure once the market is flooded, like it needs to be, the 4* cover can take its place.... The token packs can become more diverse....Rewards can be reworked...DDQ can evolve a step and maybe, just maybe.... We can open "tier play" as a way to introduce 5 STAR PLAY!

GrimSkald

aesthetocyst wrote:

GrimSkald wrote:

So the release of the Sam Wilson Captain America as a 4* marks the sixth 4* in a row they've released as a new character.

Poor spidey gets no respect ...

I'd count him if they pushed off Sam because of Peter.

JVReal wrote:

Take your time and don't rush the game. It's lasted this long because it takes a while to transition and level. Make it last.

I believe I have 40 3* characters, only just got my 8th one to 166. The rest are between 80+ to 150.

I have 13 4*, none of which are playable or leveled past 96.

The longer it takes for 4* to get maxed, the longer my 3* roster will remain viable, and for me, still fairly fresh into 3* land and putting my toes into the 4* transition waters, I would hate to see my 3* roster suddenly demoted because people want to rush the 4* meta and even try to push 5* as a solution.

Presenting a 5* card as a solution is asking for trouble and is introducing power creep. You are complaining about the 4* pace yet in the same breath ask that they introduce yet another tier?

This is pretty much exactly what I'm saying - giving us an even harder tier is going to push the 3* players out of the game. Right now I can expect to be somewhat competitive with my (admittedly excellent) 4* and pretty full 3* roster backing him up - introduce a 5* tier and suddenly I'm much less competitive. Those who don't have a viable 4* are even worse off. I do think this will be bad for the game in the long run. It may be possible after more of the player base has viable 4*s, but even then it seriously hampers the game for new players, and I don't think it's a good direction for the game. See previous note about having to seriously revamp the reward structure.

simonsez

Vhailorx wrote:

4*s were completely fine until sometime between September and November 2014. That's when xforce was buffed and 4*thor was released. Prior to that time, 3*s completely dominated the meta. 4*s existed as a trophy item, but end game play was 3* play. Vets worked on their 3* rosters and whales chased 4*s.

If you're saying the 5*s should be relatively useless trophy items, i don't think that's going to satisfy whales after they've had almost a year of experiencing and enjoying being top tier.

thanos8587

4 stars today are quickly becoming the 3 stars pre ddq. page 6 of my roster today looks exactly like my pre ddq roster did with respect to 3 stars, that is 10 4 stars with between 1 and 3 covers all mocking me after having sucked up 8000ish hp for roster slots.

is there an answer? for me (day 290) i just dont give a **** about 4 stars. if they come in tokens ill usually have accumulated sufficient hp to buy a slot and ill add each as they come. i will not go into a frenzy every 4 star release chasing it and i certainly wont drop anymore cash. in the meantime ill keep working and devoting my iso to my 3 stars to the point i can field 290/240/240 in every pvp (i only play for the low hanging rewards, i have no desire to hop and boost) and play pve to my hearts content with my 40 3 stars. theyre actually alot of fun to play. and if one day i actually fully cover a 4 star so be it, if not thats fine too.

all that said whats really needed is a weekly 4 star ddq equivalent. i think that would make most everybody happy. it would give page 6 of my roster reason to hope. it will still take years to bring them along, but who knows where will all be then.

Vhailorx

simonsez wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

4*s were completely fine until sometime between September and November 2014. That's when xforce was buffed and 4*thor was released. Prior to that time, 3*s completely dominated the meta. 4*s existed as a trophy item, but end game play was 3* play. Vets worked on their 3* rosters and whales chased 4*s.

If you're saying the 5*s should be relatively useless trophy items, i don't think that's going to satisfy whales after they've had almost a year of experiencing and enjoying being top tier.

Whales always have been and always will be at the top tier. They pay (in both time and money) to get the best characters maxed as soon as possible. 3*, 4*, or 5*, that will never change. That's the whole point. Most vet players are NOT like that, they are more like grimskald or myself (deep 3* rosters with maybe a few 4*s). Its ridiculous for me and the in memoriam players to be chasing the same rewards. They are in a different level with 15 maxed 4*s to choose from in each event while I am still heavily reliant on boasted 3*s. But right now that is where the game is, we all chase the same 2 4* progs in each pvp. That's not sustainable because any chase that is a challenge for me is trivial for them, and a challenge for them is near impossible for me.

There are a few possible solutions to that problem, but I think the easiest one is 5*s. In memoriam gets to chase a really hard to get 5* trophy class that doesn't warp the meta, and I get to focus on building out a 4* roster (with easier to acquire 4*s). We are both happy; problem solved (for now).

So yes, I think 4*s are too hard to get right, but I also expect another super hard to get tier introduced. That's because the end game play space is a different thing than the end game trophy items. 4*s used to be the latter, but now need to be the former.

Bbtbob: I think 15 4*s is getting deep enough to support a full tier of play. When I started playing the game more than year ago there were only 23 3*s or so, and that seemed like a very robust tier (with several **** characters that saw no play).

[note that there are other secondary problems to adding 5*s, like needing to speed up the 2*/3* transition, and I am not addressing them here.]

Polares

It is really a big problem, but I dont see an easy solution. I still think the best would be just to slow down 4 release a little, one every month or 5 weeks, and create new events. Hard mode? More stories? More Gauntlet? More Ultron type events? Yes we need more 4, but maybe we need more places to use them (more puzzles )

I totally agree with the tokens problem, now the only think I need is 4s (and the same SW blue cover you need), and they are super difficult to pull so most of the time even when I get a 3 is just iso, and what is even worse is when you get a 4 that you have already maxed (I am lookint at you Fury, stop!), is so underwhelming


And creating 5 would be a mistake, I am not a whale but I spend money sometimes, and I want to have the best chars, I dont have IMHB or Jean Grey maxed right away but I try to max them in a couple of months. If 5s appear I think I would stop playing altogether, because they would be out of my reach, and I would stop playing If I can get the best chars (what will be the cost of a 5 cover, 5000? And the chances in tokens, 1%?). I can fool myself to spend 100$ every two-three months, but that would be nothing for 5s.

Ps: Aaaaand roster positions cost still too much!

simonsez

Vhailorx wrote:

Whales always have been and always will be at the top tier. They pay (in both time and money) to get the best characters maxed as soon as possible. 3*, 4*, or 5*, that will never change.

Then maybe I'm misunderstanding the plan here. Thought you wanted to make 4's as common as 3's and introduce trophy 5's. In other words, everyone will be running Thing/XDP, not just a couple whales. So the whales would no longer be top tier once everyone has easy access to the combos they're already using.

Vhailorx

simonsez wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Whales always have been and always will be at the top tier. They pay (in both time and money) to get the best characters maxed as soon as possible. 3*, 4*, or 5*, that will never change.

Then maybe I'm misunderstanding the plan here. Thought you wanted to make 4's as common as 3's and introduce trophy 5's. In other words, everyone will be running Thing/XDP, not just a couple whales. So the whales would no longer be top tier once everyone has easy access to the combos they're already using.

No that's the plan. But whales are still top tier under this plan, the top tier is just more populous than before. And in any event, even if 4*s become as easy to get as 3*s were pre-ddq, it would still take most people 6-12 weeks to build new characters (e.g. cage came out in Jan. And I had him maxed in march, with only a little help from ddq). That's a lot of advantage for the whales. Also, look at,punisher, and then look at iron fist. Power creep eventually happened in 3* land and will probably happen in 4* too, giving whales more advantage. I think that between the new 4*s and 5* trophies to chase whales will be plenty happy under that scheme (to the extent that any game fandom is ever happy).

Also, I would hesitate to say that "want" this to happen. It just seems like the easiest solution for demiurge to implement. What I would actually want to see in the game is not practical and not worth discussing.

GrimSkald

Vhailorx wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Whales always have been and always will be at the top tier. They pay (in both time and money) to get the best characters maxed as soon as possible. 3*, 4*, or 5*, that will never change.

Then maybe I'm misunderstanding the plan here. Thought you wanted to make 4's as common as 3's and introduce trophy 5's. In other words, everyone will be running Thing/XDP, not just a couple whales. So the whales would no longer be top tier once everyone has easy access to the combos they're already using.

No that's the plan. But whales are still top tier under this plan, the top tier is just more populous than before. And in any event, even if 4*s become as easy to get as 3*s were pre-ddq, it would still take most people 6-12 weeks to build new characters (e.g. cage came out in Jan. And I had him maxed in march, with only a little help from ddq). That's a lot of advantage for the whales. Also, look at,punisher, and then look at iron fist. Power creep eventually happened in 3* land and will probably happen in 4* too, giving whales more advantage. I think that between the new 4*s and 5* trophies to chase whales will be plenty happy under that scheme (to the extent that any game fandom is ever happy).

Also, I would hesitate to say that "want" this to happen. It just seems like the easiest solution for demiurge to implement. What I would actually want to see in the game is not practical and not worth discussing.

Here's the problem with a 5* tier - at that point 3*s start becoming seriously underpowered in PVP. If the 5*s are as bad as the first two 4*s, then I suppose that's not an issue, but noone wants to see that. Even if they're just scaled up 4*s (same power impact, just higher level,) that's going to be one hell of a match for a 3* player to hit in the top end of PVP.

And that is ignoring the most probable route - the 5*s will have better powers than the 4*s. Most likely how the 4*s compare to the 3*s.

Think about chewing through 20-30K hit points on two characters during a hop. Particularly when you don't have 4* characters. It's going to suck. Actually, it will probably be pretty much impossible and players with 3* rosters will have a hard cap on how well they're going to be able to do. When that happens, we may well see the beginning of the end.

Unknown

I don't think the influx of 4* was made with any particular design, not even say 'this is a way to make even more $', since if the goal is to get people to get all the 4*s then you should see a lot more heroic events because that's the only way you can ensure someone who doesn't have all the 4* at a high level can't compete. As long as all your characters are available there's enough broken stuff in this game that maxing everyone out remains a luxury as opposed to a necessity. As long as MPQ only allows you to use 3 (and often only 2) characters it's just really hard to get people out of their comfort zones.

And if there's no particular reason for why there's an influx of 4*s there's also no reason to address the influx in the first place. You obviously can't get all the 4*s maxed out without spending a ton of money, but the game doesn't go out of its way to make sure a guy with that kind of roster has an insurmountable advantage which a normal game would do when they introduce so many premium characters. There is no clear endgame in MPQ, and even with 4*s being significantly stronger than 3* seemingly the norm now, you usually still only need the 2 strongest out of them after factoring in synergy/required character events. Until there's an endgame where having more than 2 best 4* is advantageous, they might as well not address the issue of 4* availability because it's not leading to anything.

Vhailorx

Phantron wrote:

I don't think the influx of 4* was made with any particular design, not even say 'this is a way to make even more $', since if the goal is to get people to get all the 4*s then you should see a lot more heroic events because that's the only way you can ensure someone who doesn't have all the 4* at a high level can't compete. As long as all your characters are available there's enough broken stuff in this game that maxing everyone out remains a luxury as opposed to a necessity. As long as MPQ only allows you to use 3 (and often only 2) characters it's just really hard to get people out of their comfort zones.

And if there's no particular reason for why there's an influx of 4*s there's also no reason to address the influx in the first place. You obviously can't get all the 4*s maxed out without spending a ton of money, but the game doesn't go out of its way to make sure a guy with that kind of roster has an insurmountable advantage which a normal game would do when they introduce so many premium characters. There is no clear endgame in MPQ, and even with 4*s being significantly stronger than 3* seemingly the norm now, you usually still only need the 2 strongest out of them after factoring in synergy/required character events. Until there's an endgame where having more than 2 best 4* is advantageous, they might as well not address the issue of 4* availability because it's not leading to anything.

Phantron, that's crazy.

Devs were saying as early as December 2014 that they were planning to increase the number of 4*s significantly. You really think that demiurge just spent the last several months planning, designing, and then releasing tons of new 4*s and completely disrupting the meta of their very profitable video game for no particular reason? That doesn't make any sense.

I can't claim that I know what their reasoning is with any certainty, but I am sure that they have some goal in mind (whether it's making more $, or extending the life of the game, or just making the meta more fun).

As for endgame; this may be more of a matter of semantics, but I would argue that there is very much an "endgame" in MPQ. There is not a clear "end," but I would define the end game as "the stage of play where a player has a max or near max roster sufficient to fully experience the tactical variety of the game, and is motivated only by need to chase new content." For almost the entire first year of MPQ's life, endgame was 3* land. sometime in the first half of 2015, the endgame has switched and 4* land is now the main focus of dev activity.

SnowcaTT

Wow....like nearly identical experience in 4* land. I think I have more days on you, but very similar roster - spent HP on the XF early on, got lucky with HB and bought the last covers for my only other covered 4*, lots of 4*'s that are nowhere near being done.

Like others, I've been shouting this out here for months, to the point where I've grown weary of it and have stopped. Any more additions - such as more characters requiring more roster spots, or more rare characters - should all come with more pull % or resource % to level them.

Again, with their release rate I can't see it going anywhere but this:

Long ago: 2*'s somewhat difficult to get, 2*'s get greatly increased draw rate as 3*'s get level boost and 2*'s become irrelevant.

More recently: 3*'s were difficult to get, 3*'s get greatly increased draw/obtain rate as 4*'s become more common and 3*'s become less relevant.

Soon: 4*'s are difficult to get....

I put up with getting to the 3* "I've made it!" bar and having it yanked away, into 4* land. But it seems that with 4* land it is impossible (barring whaling) to claim "I've made it!". But eventually they'll have enough new players trying to come in and not getting these...so they'll have to make 4*'s more common...

When 5*'s are introduced, I'm done - not having that invisible carrot pushed way off in the future for a third time, while the carrot I (and many others) worked years for is turned into a six-month transition for new players to be able to catch up with.

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

Phantron, that's crazy.

Devs were saying as early as December 2014 that they were planning to increase the number of 4*s significantly. You really think that demiurge just spent the last several months planning, designing, and then releasing tons of new 4*s and completely disrupting the meta of their very profitable video game for no particular reason? That doesn't make any sense.

I can't claim that I know what their reasoning is with any certainty, but I am sure that they have some goal in mind (whether it's making more $, or extending the life of the game, or just making the meta more fun).

Of course they didn't add the character with a plan of 'there is no plan'. But the outcome is pretty much the same as the 'no plan' plan. Back when 4* are mostly useless and they keep on adding random 3*s, some are overpowered and some are totally useless, they presumably have a plan but it was obvious all you needed was Sentry + The Hood. Even when Sentry was nerfed there was never any shakeup in the meta that'd warrant all those new 3*s that turned out to be still largely unused. The 4*s are almost certainly added to get more variety + make more money. But just like people turned out to be resistant to new 3*s that aren't totally overpowered in the 3* dominated era, you still have the same issue in the 4* dominated era because you usually only need 2 characters in most format and unless they're releasing a Sentry-level guy of brokenness every month, there's just no reason to keep up with the releases unless you just got to collect everyone.

On a fundamental level, there are only three possible outcomes in terms of balance with a given tier of character.

1. Everyone is balanced

In this case you might as well stick with the first 2 you have maxed out because they're all equally good, unless you absolutely just got to have Deadpool.

2. Newer characters are more powerful.

This quickly devolves into a P2W scenario.

3. Newer characters are less powerful.

You'd definitely stick with the first 2 you have maxed out in this case.

I know D3 tries to have characters who are for situational usages, but you can still map situational usage into those 3 scenarios. A character that has too many favorable situational matchups is still overpowered, while a character with too few favorable situational matchup is underpowered, and one that is exactly balanced in situational matchups is, well, balanced, so you'd be indifferent to getting him. In the end, there just isn't enough room on a team to make room for new characters given a very significant portion of events only allows 2 free slots.

TimGunn

I was thinking a weekly Deadpool Quest with a 4* reward could work. Helps get the 4*, but not so fast that everyone transitions in 6 months.

I'm nearly fully covered on all 3* with all around level 140 and basically don't see any way to reliably get 4* covers. have never made it to 1000 points in a PVP. They need to throw me a bone!

Unknown

TimGunn wrote:

I was thinking a weekly Deadpool Quest with a 4* reward could work. Helps get the 4*, but not so fast that everyone transitions in 6 months.

I'm nearly fully covered on all 3* with all around level 140 and basically don't see any way to reliably get 4* covers. have never made it to 1000 points in a PVP. They need to throw me a bone!

Everybody wants a bone

Your first step should be getting to 1000 PVP. With the boosted character and your level 140's, it should be possible (might require some HP investment on shields though).

TimGunn

barrok wrote:

Everybody wants a bone

Your first step should be getting to 1000 PVP. With the boosted character and your level 140's, it should be possible (might require some HP investment on shields though).

yeah, i usually get to 700-800 towards end of event and then shield until end, i guess i have to get to that point earlier and then shield to let all the retals bounce off me and then "hop" up to 1000 and then shield again (or not! if i don't care about placement) - haven't been brave enough to try that yet!