Stuck in Transition

Unknown

Am I the only one here who's been stuck in the 2-3* transition for a stupidly long amount of time?

I only ever purchase hp for roster slots as frankly I have better things to spend coin on than in app purchases.

Still, last anniversary I got quite a good haul of 3* characters. Over time I have ended up with maxed out level 2's and I have a multitude of 3* covers and a couple 4* but none anywhere near fully covered. My highest two are Captain Marvel and Kamala Khan.

It feels like I'm stuck in this transition with no sign of things improving. I can't battle events well enough to earn rewards to boost my position as my team is lacking in power, and it seems such rewards get further away not closer to being attainable.


Mod Edit: Moving to Roster/Level Help subforum on 10/15
2nd Mod Edit: Moved to Roster/Level Help

BlackSheep101

Are you in an alliance? The thing that sped up my 3* transition the most (after DDQ) was joining an alliance that routinely finished high enough in events to get HP awards. That let me roster more (eventually all) 3*s, letting me improve them with DDQ.

simonsez

nexusgrim wrote:

It feels like I'm stuck in this transition with no sign of things improving. I can't battle events well enough to earn rewards

What about PvE and DDQ?

Unknown

BlackSheep101 wrote:

Are you in an alliance? The thing that sped up my 3* transition the most (after DDQ) was joining an alliance that routinely finished high enough in events to get HP awards. That let me roster more (eventually all) 3*s, letting me improve them with DDQ.

Yes I started one along with my daughter and my gf but over time the members that were in it have ceased playing so it may well be time to jump ship. My only concern there is a lot of alliances have quite high demands of people, I work full time so may not be an ideal roster member time devotion wise.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

nexusgrim wrote:

It feels like I'm stuck in this transition with no sign of things improving. I can't battle events well enough to earn rewards

What about PvE and DDQ?

I play ddq every day but 3* rewards at least in my case are seemingly few and far between. PVE I try my best but again I only get so far with the current team.

BlackSheep101

nexusgrim wrote:

Yes I started one along with my daughter and my gf but over time the members that were in it have ceased playing so it may well be time to jump ship. My only concern there is a lot of alliances have quite high demands of people, I work full time so may not be an ideal roster member time devotion wise.

There are casual alliances out there. If you can find a good group where everyone plays every day, you'll notice a significant improvement.

Unknown

BlackSheep101 wrote:

nexusgrim wrote:

Yes I started one along with my daughter and my gf but over time the members that were in it have ceased playing so it may well be time to jump ship. My only concern there is a lot of alliances have quite high demands of people, I work full time so may not be an ideal roster member time devotion wise.

There are casual alliances out there. If you can find a good group where everyone plays every day, you'll notice a significant improvement.

I will, I just feel like I'm p*ssing into the wind some days

Dragon_Nexus

PvP really isn't viable for 2-3* transitioners these days.

Back before they put a 4* up in a reachable place, I could very easilly get to at least one 3* cover with anything between 600-800 points, and 800 points to me was considered a result. An exception. I might get two or even sometimes three covers from that and that really helped.

Now though you need to be scoring 1000 to get in the top 50, but sometimes that just gets you top 100.

It seems the game has progressed in line with the people who started early, but those joining up now are trying to catch up. They really need to create a "guaranteed 3*" token.

That said, I found the 2-3* transition took a while for me too. After a while you begin to build up momentum as the covers start coming in and you find the characters become more effective and hit harder than the 2* roster you'd been relying on. Once you get characters like Patch, Steve Rogers, Thor, Black Panther, Deadpool and a few others in a usable condition you might find things start to get easier and then you win more prizes.

The game is about keeping your expectations realistic. If you keep trying to hit top 5 and fail it can be demoralising. I personally in PvP aim for 1000. I don't even try for 1300 because iI know it would get incredibly frustrating if I miss it. I hit 1000 and shield up, happy that I got a cover from it. Likewise in PvE I aim for progression and *sometimes* the cover if they're one of the few 3*s I need.

Go for something attainable. Anything after that is a bonus

Unknown

As somebody with plenty of ready-to-max 3*s and a fear of doing so, I'm kinda in the same boat here.

I'm like "what's the point of getting all those 3*s out when I don't even have the great ones like Iron Fist, Loki, and Scarlet Witch ready? I can't compete without them!" or something like that.

A team of is not a team that can take down high PVP scores on it's own, I don't think.

So I'm hiding scared until I get 12 more Iron Fist covers and 8 more Scarlet Witches and junk.

Dragon_Nexus

colwag wrote:

As somebody with plenty of ready-to-max 3*s and a fear of doing so, I'm kinda in the same boat here.

I'm like "what's the point of getting all those 3*s out when I don't even have the great ones like Iron Fist, Loki, and Scarlet Witch ready? I can't compete without them!" or something like that.

A team of is not a team that can take down high PVP scores on it's own, I don't think.

So I'm hiding scared until I get 12 more Iron Fist covers and 8 more Scarlet Witches and junk.

is great when boosted but she works well with backup so she's not tanking colours.
is good for creating cascades in your favour. He arrived too late in my transition for me to level him up and try him properly but I can see the potential.
is still one of the best 3*s going and is the undesputed king of PvE. You NEED to get him to level 166, it's all but mandatory.
is Steve's best friend. He doesn't need a lot of levels to be useful since he's a passive machine, boosting your special tiles and erasing the enemies, also laying down some protection if you need it.
is a mainstay for PvP. You'd be surprised how often it can swing a fight in your favour if you're the only one with a Hood. Speaking from my own experience I tend to target him first, and if others do that it means your heavier hitters are untouched and building up power while he's being knocked down.
admittedly not as good now since there are other 3*s out there who hit harder than him, but if I see a boosted hulk I tend to groan and contemplate skipping. He's a great green battery for other players and hit high HP means he can last longer without needing a health pack.
I waited until only recently to max him out. He's okay. His red hits hardest and is pretty quick to throw out. Not a priority, but if he's boosted you could do worse.
A little niche, but she's one of the heaviest hitters in the 3* roster. Boosted she does over 10k damage when at max level.
I got him to level 121 before the nerf happened. He's still level 121. So yeah, he's really not as useful as he once was. Though if you level Hood up and he has 5 black covers, he'd still work well with Sentry.
Another mainstay of the 3* roster. Granted, he works best with Loki but I always use the same team for the DDQ survival node. Patch, Steve and Falcon. It works every time. This team dominated pretty much every survival node. His low HP is made up for by the fact his healing's so damn good.

So you have a lot of good characters already. Don't underestimate their usefulness, you're well on your way. Just because you can't pair up Scarlet Witch and Deadpool or Kamala and Thor doesn't mean you're doomed to forever fail

Unknown

I'd be interested to see your roster

Hayek

I agree that the 2 to 3 transitioners have a much harder time getting PvP placement rewards these days and so the game may seem to you like it's catering to veterans. But when I was going through that same transition a few months ago, here's what we didn't have:

• DDQ that helps you complete your 3 that you already have rostered
• DDQ ISO rewards for leveling
• Drastically reduced ISO cost of leveling for 3 and 4
• Guaranteed 4 (and possibly 5) PvE progression that can be achieved easily with a mere 3 clears a day
• Drastically improved rates of 3 and 4 from tokens
• 4 from second place in PvE
• Reachable 3 and 4 rewards in shield sim

The old school transition for me meant going for top 5 every PvE so I could get my 3 covers and hoping for good placement in PvP so I could get a couple more. Then I would have to wait until that character came around again to have any chance to improve him. Without DDQ, ISO was 3x rarer and getting your 3 to 166 cost almost double. The one thing I think older members (I mean at least 18 month old account) have it better than new players is daily resupply. My account is just over a year old, and by the time I get the 4 rewards, I don't really need them anymore.

So looking from my side of the fence, it seems like it's a much better time to be a new player. Heck, nowadays many players are not really going from 2 -> 3, but rather 2 -> 3/4 transition. I remember when I finally had a couple of 166s, I had one IW, one fury, and one xf cover. And it took soooo long to get more. Now you can probably have a handful of 4s with a handful of covers by the time you get to solid 3 territory.

tl;dr

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SnowcaTT

As the longer playerbase gets to 4*'s, I was just wondering aloud with team-mates how the 3*'s can possibly get ahead now. I know transitioners we've brought in with good 3* rosters are now really struggling to keep 800 or even hit 1k.

I think six months ago the 3*'s could get into 4*'s. But as the number of 4* heavy players have grown, and the number of 4* characters have grown (making transition time to get 10+ covers in any given 4* harder and harder) - it seems 3* is who will get squeezed out.

Yet another reason for 3* and lower only PVP that rewards 4* (both as individual and alliance rewards).

GurlBYE

I'm in 2>3 too.

I'm right on the edge. DDQ helps but I didn't roster every 3 star.
The 4 star transition even effected my roster as crazy as that sounds. I have 11 4 stars rostered. And i've already sold 1 off.
Selling them hurts because I can look ahead and see long it'll be until I see those again. And some help for essentials in pve.

I've finally got some maxed singular covers for characters and am getting close (I'm a yellow magnet 1/5/2, 5/2/2, 2/4/2, 3/2/4, 3/1/3, 4/2/2, 3/2/1)

What sucks is that even though I'm so close to the edge of it, all I can do is keep earning packs and crossing my fingers. And even boosted most just aren't holding a candle to classic storm and MNM paired with whoever in pvp or pve. This sim is the first time loki, cyc kamala has been acceptable and able to complete most nodes but still slower then those 2)
Placements without lucky late joins are harder. People with better rosters can clear faster then me.
More then 100 people per bracket are usually going for legendary, even late pvp's are subject to falling out of the 3* cover period without some grinding. I remember I joined 1 pvp at maybe an hour before end at 20th place, and I had to fight for an hour straight just to keep top 50.

I've got 24 of the 40 3 stars, so even DDQ on 16 of the 40 days in a cycle will still only give me one taco.

Worse we can all see some 3 stars get no spotlight. (i can't recall patch being a progression award in pve since playing for example)
I didn't even know lukecage was in game till 2 months in.

smkspy

DDQ is great once you get nearly every 3 star, but it's one cover every 40 days, so my newly acquired Patch is getting an upcoming cover then nothing for another forty days unless I luck into something. Until then he is useless to me. I could deal with that if I had some core 3 stars that I knew had a greater chance of building up somewhat fast like those that the game grooms for you to transition into 1 to 2 star like it does with 2 star Thor, Cap Marvel, and Wolverine.

Example. From day one I had a 3 star Thor that worthless until I could beat the big enchilada. Two more Covers later still useless to me useless he's an essential in a pve.

Mazza

In the transition. I'm in s great alliance and it helps, but it can be tough. With all the 4* and even 5* coming out getting 3* to 166 feels a little useless although necessary. Something needs to be done or new players will have it rough I think.

n25philly

Mazza wrote:

In the transition. I'm in s great alliance and it helps, but it can be tough. With all the 4* and even 5* coming out getting 3* to 166 feels a little useless although necessary. Something needs to be done or new players will have it rough I think.

I realized what a joke trying to transition is right around when Iceman came out. It was a day or two after he was released and I was doing pvp in futility because the 3* available was someone I had in my roster. I hadn't gotten to for when out of curiosity I decided to look at the rosters of the people at top. The top shown all already had shields going and I looked at all the rosters. Not only did everyone have rosters full of fully leveled or nearly full, but the guy in the top spot already had a fully leveled iceman already! How do you expect to get even a top 100 finish to get one cover (which would have been more than enough to make me happy) when you have to compete with that when you're top characters are 2*'s?

Needless to say I'll play PVP until I get the first token and if I have time the first 25hp and then don't waste any more time on it. (if I play it at all)

Unknown

Hayek wrote:

I agree that the 2 to 3 transitioners have a much harder time getting PvP placement rewards these days and so the game may seem to you like it's catering to veterans. But when I was going through that same transition a few months ago, here's what we didn't have:

I'm a little further on than that now. I had lucky early loki and iron fist draws in my early 2* days that greatly helped me along. Now though, I'm punished for having a competent roster and further transition is pretty stonewalled. Here's what I'm seeing in comparison.

Hayek wrote:

[*] DDQ that helps you complete your 3 that you already have rostered

Yes. DDQ is comfortably accessible (though slow). It's what I lean on for nearly all of my progress.

Hayek wrote:

[*] DDQ ISO rewards for leveling

Yes this has been fine, even with starting to hit upper 3* leveling costs consistently, I'm getting enough ISO with daily DDQ play to keep up.

Hayek wrote:

[*] Drastically reduced ISO cost of leveling for 3 and 4

I never really hit that particular problem as the fix went in before I started really entering that space. Current costs seem to match my ability to generate ISO.

Hayek wrote:

[*] Guaranteed 4 (and possibly 5) PvE progression that can be achieved easily with a mere 3 clears a day

My experience is quite different. Or perhaps I don't have the same definition of 'clearing a node' that you do. At three different times each day, I attack all pve nodes I can. I generally have a high success rate. But I don't have time to wear down all the points values on all nodes to 0. My results are commonly to get about halfway to two-thirds along the rewards progression before the pve event ends. In this way the 4* rewards are blatantly not accessible. Subsequently, the useful placement rewards are commonly out of reach.

Also, lately, it seems like I'm on a bad luck streak. The ai is getting massive chains out of nowhere on a much more frequent basis than I'm used to, plus other lucky breaks on randomized selections such as on Falcon's Redwing. It's quite frustrating and has lowered my success rate noticeably by at least 10 percentage points.

Hayek wrote:

[*] Drastically improved rates of 3 and 4 from tokens

I've decided to remove my faith in this option. It's not too unfair to think simplistically of the odds as saying 1 in 4 tokens will be a 3* or better reward. But over the last month my results have been closer to 1 in 20, and of the 3* or better rewards I have received, they have overwhelmingly fallen within the 20 3* characters I don't have and can't support on my roster.

Your mileage may vary, and I still enjoy the slot machine feel of opening tokens, but this is not a good option to use as a foundation for your progression plans.

Hayek wrote:

[*] 4 from second place in PvE

For whatever reason, the same approach I was using to get consistent top 50 results in pve progression early in the year fails to get in the top 200 now. I don't have time to research in depth or debate whatever I'm doing wrong. I just have to accept that this is no longer an option for my progression goals.

Hayek wrote:

[*] Reachable 3 and 4 rewards in shield sim[/list]

PvP is no longer an option. I got top 2 in a shield sim late in my 1* days, which got me a cool prof x cover. Now matchmaking is too terrible. I'm routinely getting matched against teams featuring 4*s at 200+. They're not impossible to tackle with a good Iron Fist 3* team, but it's generally pointless. Plus the negative reinforcement of losing a ton of retaliation points because you're a relatively easy target (do alliances still swarm on pvp targets?)

It's strange though. For Black Vortex the other day, there was an easy token to get at 50 points, so I played the three seed battles, and then I unexpectedly got another 6 seed battles before I got my first real matchup. So I was able to get like 3 anniversary tokens (all 2* rewards though) cheaply. When I logged in later that day I saw all the negative reinforcement of losing all my pvp points anyway. So overall it wasn't worth it fun wise to dabble in pvp.

Hayek wrote:

So looking from my side of the fence, it seems like it's a much better time to be a new player. Heck, nowadays many players are not really going from 2 -> 3, but rather 2 -> 3/4 transition. I remember when I finally had a couple of 166s, I had one IW, one fury, and one xf cover. And it took soooo long to get more. Now you can probably have a handful of 4s with a handful of covers by the time you get to solid 3 territory.

Yeah I agree. The game seems to make itself much more comely to low level players (and to whales too, which I don't have a problem with). And the mid 3* game seems like it still holds up for fun. DDQ 3* is the best value by far. But there's a real stonewall in place once you get a handful of powerful and reliable 3*s and a handful of starter 4*s. Pve progression is pushed somewhat out of reach, pvp progression is not worth it, DDQ 4* basically requires you to be very well progressed already with 4*s, tokens are very unreliable.

I haven't tried alliances. They're forced to twist themselves around to orbit the unyielding difficult progressions, and I can't afford to adapt in those ways. Even the casual alliances have to deal with the facts that casual play doesn't get far along these progression paths, which makes them rife with unreliability.

Note... Money is an option too. This is probably the most fitting part of a player's long term progression to throw a few dollars at.

But even with all that the part of the game that's left over is still fun. Try not to sweat the big things. Just focus on the DDQ 3* every day, and play pve events for fun on your own time, take your shots with the tokens you get, and try not to invest emotionally on any of the big shiny new things that the devs are adding at the high levels. They're not really for you anyway. Just keep it chill like Iceman. He knows he got stuck with an ugly mug, but he slides along fine.

BlackSheep101

herbal wrote:

Hayek wrote:

[*] Guaranteed 4 (and possibly 5) PvE progression that can be achieved easily with a mere 3 clears a day

My experience is quite different. Or perhaps I don't have the same definition of 'clearing a node' that you do. At three different times each day, I attack all pve nodes I can. I generally have a high success rate. But I don't have time to wear down all the points values on all nodes to 0. My results are commonly to get about halfway to two-thirds along the rewards progression before the pve event ends. In this way the 4* rewards are blatantly not accessible. Subsequently, the useful placement rewards are commonly out of reach.

3 clears a day means beating each node once, waiting 8 hours for them to refresh then clearing again, then 8 more hours and clearing a third time. It's the basic yard stick for reaching the top progression award in a pve, and there's some wiggle room if you can't play at exactly the right time. I think it assumes that you have all 3 essential characters, though. If not, you'll have to grind a bit.

herbal wrote:

For whatever reason, the same approach I was using to get consistent top 50 results in pve progression early in the year fails to get in the top 200 now. I don't have time to research in depth or debate whatever I'm doing wrong. I just have to accept that this is no longer an option for my progression goals.

I don't think this is your imagination. I think more people are playing PVE and are pushing for higher scores to get the legendary token, so what used to get you a high placement is now a relatively mediocre score.

Lee T

I was in 3* hell just before DDQ started. I had all but 2 current 3* rostered (paid real money for that) but they all were very much undercovered. DDQ did gave me a serious boost, even though it is a slow fuse.

It took me a few month to be able to hold my own in PVE and then I startd consistently finishing t150 then t100 this summer. Now that I have almost all my 3* correctly covered I can do t50 in regular PVE and hope for a t100 when a 4* is on the line (these are definitely harder).

I have a strong dislike for PVP so my experience is limited. I tried as soon as I could to get around 300 every event and 1000 in simulator to get the 10 pack. I remember getting a Luke Cage with my first time so this was righgt before DDQ appeared. I generally join in in the last hour which has the double benefit of reducing point loss and netting you a t100 if you're lucky.

cyineedsn

herbal wrote:

I haven't tried alliances. They're forced to twist themselves around to orbit the unyielding difficult progressions, and I can't afford to adapt in those ways. Even the casual alliances have to deal with the facts that casual play doesn't get far along these progression paths, which makes them rife with unreliability.

I used to feel the same way, but you should give it a try. I imagine there are probably 2* or semi-casual alliances out there. Will such an alliance make top 100? Probably not, but if you even get top 250 or 500, that's an extra 25-50 HP every pvp, and that could be the difference between doing a shield hop and possibly getting extra progression rewards every event while staying HP-neutral or HP-positive, or...well... not. Plus, there's the social aspect and camaraderie of alliances as well.

The worst thing that could happen is it doesn't work out and you get nothing, which is still no worse than you were before.