Why the 4* "Transition" is impossible
Comments
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SnowcaTT wrote:PeterGibbons316 wrote:I'm mixed on this. Yeah, it would be nice if more 4*s were easily accessible, but then they would be accessible for everyone else as well. I'm already pretty regularly seeing teams with maxed 4*s in PvP, and I'm just not sure that things are so bad right now that it would be worth it to flood PvP with more teams of maxed JeanBusters.
Also, I spent a lot of time getting the 166s that I have, and I'm not sure I'm ready for most of them to go obsolete.
Unfortunately, that ship has mostly already sailed. I see plenty of 270/270 (boosted or not)/100 or less. If you're going to whale, that middle character barely matters anymore.
I've been advocating for months a reason to make the 3*'s still relevant. Right now they are becoming more obsolete by the day, as more and more people get multiple maxed 4*'s. We need a 3* buffed/4* unbuffed PVP when they start buffing 4*'s to be able to compete with 5*'s....at that point they might as well make a 4* buffed/5* unbuffed PVP to go alongside it, since even under-covered 4* would dominate the current PVP world (more than they already do)
This kinda contradicts your original post, doesn't it? If 4*transition is impossible then you would not see many rosters with multiple 4* maxed.0 -
SnowcaTT wrote:PeterGibbons316 wrote:I'm mixed on this. Yeah, it would be nice if more 4*s were easily accessible, but then they would be accessible for everyone else as well. I'm already pretty regularly seeing teams with maxed 4*s in PvP, and I'm just not sure that things are so bad right now that it would be worth it to flood PvP with more teams of maxed JeanBusters.
Also, I spent a lot of time getting the 166s that I have, and I'm not sure I'm ready for most of them to go obsolete.
Unfortunately, that ship has mostly already sailed. I see plenty of 270/270 (boosted or not)/100 or less. If you're going to whale, that middle character barely matters anymore.
I've been advocating for months a reason to make the 3*'s still relevant. Right now they are becoming more obsolete by the day, as more and more people get multiple maxed 4*'s. We need a 3* buffed/4* unbuffed PVP when they start buffing 4*'s to be able to compete with 5*'s....at that point they might as well make a 4* buffed/5* unbuffed PVP to go alongside it, since even under-covered 4* would dominate the current PVP world (more than they already do)
But they are becoming obsolete for /us/, the 4* transitioners, which is fine (if a bit sad). For 3* transitioners they are still the bread and butter and the dream of the people below. It was no different when 2*s stopped being relevant for us.0 -
PeterGibbons316 wrote:I'm mixed on this. Yeah, it would be nice if more 4*s were easily accessible, but then they would be accessible for everyone else as well. I'm already pretty regularly seeing teams with maxed 4*s in PvP, and I'm just not sure that things are so bad right now that it would be worth it to flood PvP with more teams of maxed JeanBusters.
Also, I spent a lot of time getting the 166s that I have, and I'm not sure I'm ready for most of them to go obsolete.
My thoughts exactly. I think the question should be, how long should it take to cover a given character after release? Thing came out in late july or early august and I already have 8 covers. Then came Jean, I have 9. On the other hand, I have less covers or characters that have been out for longer: Starlord at 6, Kingpin and Hulkbuster at 7, Carnage at 3. All of them obtained in events and token pulls.
I understand the sentiment in the OP, but empiric evidence shows that 4* covers are already more accesible than five months ago. How much more accesible should they be if a dedicated, but by no means hardcore nor whale player can win 8-9 covers for each two characters in three months?0 -
And now with the "Command Points" leak there's rumors that we won't be able to buy ANY covers for HP anymore. Better hope these "Command Points" are the best things since sliced bread!0
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Omega Red wrote:PeterGibbons316 wrote:I'm mixed on this. Yeah, it would be nice if more 4*s were easily accessible, but then they would be accessible for everyone else as well. I'm already pretty regularly seeing teams with maxed 4*s in PvP, and I'm just not sure that things are so bad right now that it would be worth it to flood PvP with more teams of maxed JeanBusters.
Also, I spent a lot of time getting the 166s that I have, and I'm not sure I'm ready for most of them to go obsolete.
My thoughts exactly. I think the question should be, how long should it take to cover a given character after release? Thing came out in late july or early august and I already have 8 covers. Then came Jean, I have 9. On the other hand, I have less covers or characters that have been out for longer: Starlord at 6, Kingpin and Hulkbuster at 7, Carnage at 3. All of them obtained in events and token pulls.
I understand the sentiment in the OP, but empiric evidence shows that 4* covers are already more accesible than five months ago. How much more accesible should they be if a dedicated, but by no means hardcore nor whale player can win 8-9 covers for each two characters in three months?
Congratulations on your luck - unfortunately for me, my most covered 4*s are Fury, IW, Starlord, and Carnage. I'm not going to be owning PvP any time soon with that.
The "accessibility" argument is entirely moot - you can already buy your way to the top. There doesn't need to be a 1-2* transition when I can buy 2-3 40-packs and then all the covers I want. Or just place really well as a newbie in a 4* PvE, and buy up all the covers. There needs to be a transition method, and SnowcaTT's post is just showing that the "transition" that is perceived to be there isn't actually there. Just look at his first point - to get one Jean Grey purple, should I really have to wait 6 months? Assuming my luck is bad, which it usually is, and I have to get all 5 Jean Grey purples via PvP rotation and no more characters are added after the next purple comes around, should I be forced to wait two years just to fully cover my Jean Grey? What about someone who starts today - how long should he or she have to play to get 5 Jean Grey purples? What if that person is bad at the game, and invests a large amount of hours but can't always hit 1K PvP? Or can't hit 1K PvP at all?
At that rate I could just create a new account and collect legendary tokens every PvE for 2 years, then open them all at once and skip the 2-3-4* transition and just go straight to 5* - except by then there will probably be thirty 5* characters, so that will be too diluted too.
Should any game, especially a match-3 game, be designed to prevent people from ever seeing the end game? Isn't that exactly what everyone hates about Candy Crush - that the end game is essentially behind a pay-wall? Just make a match-3 demon souls game next time.0 -
Well he can just send a post card to:XandorXerxes wrote:What if that person is bad at the game, and invests a large amount of hours but can't always hit 1K PvP? Or can't hit 1K PvP at all?
D3 Go!
c/o Marvel Puzzle Quest
P.O. Box 32733
Detroit, MI 48252
and they can mail him his **** participation trophy.0 -
Omega Red wrote:PeterGibbons316 wrote:I'm mixed on this. Yeah, it would be nice if more 4*s were easily accessible, but then they would be accessible for everyone else as well. I'm already pretty regularly seeing teams with maxed 4*s in PvP, and I'm just not sure that things are so bad right now that it would be worth it to flood PvP with more teams of maxed JeanBusters.
Also, I spent a lot of time getting the 166s that I have, and I'm not sure I'm ready for most of them to go obsolete.
My thoughts exactly. I think the question should be, how long should it take to cover a given character after release? Thing came out in late july or early august and I already have 8 covers. Then came Jean, I have 9. On the other hand, I have less covers or characters that have been out for longer: Starlord at 6, Kingpin and Hulkbuster at 7, Carnage at 3. All of them obtained in events and token pulls.
I understand the sentiment in the OP, but empiric evidence shows that 4* covers are already more accesible than five months ago. How much more accesible should they be if a dedicated, but by no means hardcore nor whale player can win 8-9 covers for each two characters in three months?
To start, here is the chronological backstory on my free to play (mostly) roster as far as I can remember:
95% of my gains were from tokens/1k rewards in pvp (thank you thor/xforce). I typically get 1-2 4*s from new character PVEs when launched, and 1 from my alliance. I always get the 4* when featured in PVP.
X-Force - Maxed (before last anniversary)
Invisible Woman - Maxed (before last anniversary)
Devil Dinosaur - Maxed during last anniversary event (thank you lightning rounds!)
Elektra - Maxed around last November
Thor - Maxed around last December
Hulkbuster - Maxed (two months after the first Ultron event, alliance beat him and I bought 1 cover pulled 4 in tokens very lucky)
Nick - Maxed a few months after Hulkbuster
Starlord - Maxed a month after Nick
**** End of Maxed 4*s ****
Kingpin - Will be my next finish 3/5/4
Antman - Will be after him 3/2/4
Jean Grey - 3/2/5
Carnage - 5/0/5 (I maxed green like 2 months ago!? I will get black one day!)
Deadpool - 5/1/2 (Please stop giving me red)
Thing (0/2/5) (please stop giving me green)
**** Now here is the huge dropoff ****
Cyclops - 1/3/1 (thanks to the anniversary event)
Sam Wilson - 0/1/3
Red Hulk - 1/1/1 (thanks to the anniversary event)
Iceman - 0/1/2
Mr Fantastic - 0/2/2
The point at which they sped their 4* creation is becoming more evident every month.
Im not sure if Snow feels like I do, but it's not that the current saturation in the 4* realm is bad, I think it is about perfect. Before the 4* launches I was looking at a dead end road that had little for me. The problem is that it needs to stay here. I have been a 4* transitioner for awhile now, and I don't think it's OK to boot me so far backwards. In other words, it shouldn't go from "here is new content" to "I'm drowning in new content and am falling behind". The only people that can keep pace are the whales. In order to stay here there needs to be more options to gain legendary tokens.0 -
I'll agree with OP, partially. I think there are a lot of assumptions being made and some (probably) deliberate choices in phrasing.
I agree with the idea that rewards need to be thoroughly re-examined. I've said it plenty before that perhaps thefundamental flaw is that we are now running a 4* game in a game designed for 2* play. Most of us here will remember a time when even 2* covers were hard to come by, and you only saw 3* characters among the rosters at the very highest level of play. Well, Demiurge just kept on ratcheting things up but we're still playing the same basic 2* game for the same everybody-is-playing-2*-roster rewards. I will grant that this has shifted somewhat toward a mostly-3* environment but only because they stopped putting out 3* characters.
The time has long since passed that we ought to have leagues where people can compete for rewards that the actual competitors themselves need. Many months ago I passed the point where 3* covers had any meaning for me except as 500 iso. I regularly move myself down to help my sister alliances raise their standing to get that t100 alliance cover. I am also very much at the mercy of boosted maxed 4* teams who speed across my mostly 3* roster without even slowing down. Who is winning here? I'm always going to be at least t100, but I don't need that 3* cover. The guys above me sure as hell don't, and only one person is going to get that 4* cover for first place. Odds are pretty good they don't need it, either! Meanwhile, on the other side, 2* > 3* people are barely cracking t100 if at all, yet they are precisely the people who should be getting those rewards I and the upper echelon are selling off for Iso. It's completely stupid.
On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the stance that only whales can enjoy the move into 4* play. I have just finished getting my 4or at a 5/3/5 build about two weeks ago, and today won my 13th Hulkbuster cover in PvP. When I get the Iso together they will be my third and fourth 270's along with X-Force Wolverine and Nick Fury. I bought HP for the first time during the second anniversary, and will likely not be using that HP for anything but shields and roster slots. Just a whole lot of time playing and a little bit of luck, yet here I am, basically on the edge of being ready to say I am playing at a 4* level. Certainly not the best of all characters, though...which brings me to...
Suggestions for improvement!- Leagues. Leagues. Leagues. Let people compete for rewards that are meaningful for their level of play. The current system is utterly ridiculous, giving up prizes that are meaningless for the winners, and nigh-impossible for the rest. No one wins.
- Open the floodgates for Iso to compensate for the exorbitant costs that leveling these 4* incurs. The drip we get now is enough to manage growth at a 3* level...because that level is already finished growing. DURP!
- 4* characters need to be good. All of them. No exceptions. It is preposterous that people are getting those 4* pulls and being angry because they are pulling characters that are niche at best (Faptain, Ant-Man, Mr. Fantastic...), and demonstrably worse (Star-Lord, Devil Dino, Elektra) than 3* characters. If the rarity and difficulty of obtaining them stays as-is, it is inexcusable for them to be anything less than on par with anyone at the next lower tier. Inexcusable.
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Have to agree with you here and posted a pretty similar thread a while back.
what is getting at me the most at the moment is that during the anniversary week I actually felt like I was making progress on the 4* transition (I accrued around 12 4* covers from this (only 4 DD) through token pulls and I hit the 1k progression once and won the 4* DDP) but now its back to the normal meat and bones of MPQ and the covers have dried up. I attempted to hit 1k in the squirrel girl pvp but got around 700 and was getting hit back down and have attempted to hit the pve progression token but with 1/2 the time almost gone it looks unlikely that I will make up the 110K+ pts I still need.0 -
El Satanno wrote:4* characters need to be good. All of them. No exceptions. It is preposterous that people are getting those 4* pulls and being angry because they are pulling characters that are niche at best (Faptain, Ant-Man, Mr. Fantastic...), and demonstrably worse (Star-Lord, Devil Dino, Elektra) than 3* characters. If the rarity and difficulty of obtaining them stays as-is, it is inexcusable for them to be anything less than on par with anyone at the next lower tier. Inexcusable.[/list]
This reminds me of Hearthstone, where you have some truly awful Legendaries like Hemet Nesingwary and Icehowl that never see play, and when they're pulled from a pack, they're usually accompanied by disgruntled sighs. So the argument could be made that, like in Hearthstone, you need some niche tech cards/characters that aren't good normally, but excel in certain situations. I don't think that's the approach D3 have gone for with MPQ though. Regardless of that, I don't think that approach works in a match-3 game with such a limited amount of game mechanics (compared to a CCG/TCG like Hearthstone or Magic).
If I continue my Hearthstone/MPQ comparison, I believe the 4* transition in the latter is much more manageable than the usable deck-grind in the former. I think I've used equal amounts of money in both games, and I feel like I've come farther with it in MPQ. (Nevermind the fact that HS has been nigh on unplayable for me because of the plague known as Patron Warrior (R.I.P in peace) for the last five months).0 -
I've been having lots of fun with Star-Lord and Elektra lately. And Devil Dinosaur... how can you not love playing a dinosaur?0
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I just posted about this (sort of) in the suggestions thread.
If they simply change the 4* DDQ to be cover specific instead of a token (like 3* DDQ) then it will go some way to solving this problem. I also agree with making it more frequent, maybe thrice a week would be fair.
Until the introduction of 3* DDQ didn't vets complain about the very same issue when transitioning from 2 - 3 *?0 -
PeterGibbons316 wrote:
Well he can just send a post card to:XandorXerxes wrote:What if that person is bad at the game, and invests a large amount of hours but can't always hit 1K PvP? Or can't hit 1K PvP at all?
D3 Go!
c/o Marvel Puzzle Quest
P.O. Box 32733
Detroit, MI 48252
and they can mail him his tinykitty participation trophy.
It's a match-3 game, all we ever get is participation trophy. The problem is that the current trophy selection doesn't match the effort put in the game no matter which part of the player spectrum you're in.0 -
haven't read anything past the first few posts, but OP has done a great job of stating the problem (as others have noted in the past). The release rate is much too fast relative to the availability of 4* covers (some people didn't like this release rate back when it was 3*s that were much easier to build).
Demiurge really really needs to make more than one cover per character available in a given event. Otherwise it will never be possible to build a 4* in a reasonable amount of time. And given that covers cost $12-20 (depending on your HP purchase habits) each for direct buy, most people won't be buying covers until they have 10ish already. But 10ish covers in the current system might take 6 or 8 months.0 -
To play devil's advocate, if it's impossible, how do so many F2P players have a good 4* roster?0
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SnowcaTT wrote:SOLUTIONS TO EACH OF THESE PROBLEMS. IT IS TIME TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS.
It’s time to treat the 4*’s like 3*’s used to be. They should be at 800 as a progression reward, they should be given out as T100 rewards for individuals in PVP and PVE, they should be given out as T100 rewards for teams in PVP and PVE.
As long as bracketing exists (especially the noob/veteran thing), this doesn't work. My cruddy alt account with proper timing and actual effort can place top 100. I'm barely into the 2* transition with it, what on earth am I doing with a 4* at that stage?SnowcaTT wrote:It’s time for roster slots to be capped at a lower amount. 500 HP each is plenty with the current release schedule, that’s still 1500 a season needed!
How is it 3 per season? Seasons, including the 2 offseason events, are 28 day cycles. With an every other week release, that's 2 spots, not 3.
Anyhow, I get the passion but as someone else pointed out, at the 3* level, covers came fast and furious before the way to address them. I think we'll see the same thing for the 4* level, but we're not out of the woods yet.
I definitely disagree with flooding resources into the game, unless you're putting them at the top end of PvP where only players who can use them can get. Like above, flooding the bottom with HP/ISO trivializes the early stages more than they already are, and from that standpoint they can't just make sweeping changes to benefit the top 1%.0 -
simonsez wrote:To play devil's advocate, if it's impossible, how do so many F2P players have a good 4* roster?
To play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate: I'm one of those F2P players with a good 4* roster, but I do realize I've been able to build that mostly because the 4* character pool was much smaller, so 1k progression/1st place placement cover cycles (and later the 1300 cover) were much smaller too, and it was easier to focus on one character that you wanted at a time. That's no longer feasible now, and although Legendaries have been added as a means to get 4*, their randomness can leave you with a lot of half-finished characters that are all but useless.
I agree with others in the thread that we've come to a tipping point where the old means of collection are no longer sufficient, and an additional way to collect specific 4* covers is needed.0 -
Lee T wrote:It's a match-3 game, all we ever get is participation trophy. The problem is that the current trophy selection doesn't match the effort put in the game no matter which part of the player spectrum you're in.
I do actually agree with this. I finished the SG PvP in 2nd and got 3 vision covers, plus a 4th from my alliance. That's 2k ISO. Nobody that finishes top5 needs that 3rd Vision cover, and it's really not a good reward for the 750 hp I spent on shields to finish there.0 -
Fair point, but even the more recent characters are well-represented. It seems like the entire world has jeanbuster, and there were plenty of 4s already by the time they came out. There's also no shortage of Things and XDPs out there. The releases of Mr F and Falcap is where you see a dropoff, but that has more to do with their perceived worth. And my best guess is that within 4-5 weeks (or even sooner), we're going to see way more Cykes than we want to.Der_Lex wrote:To play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate: I'm one of those F2P players with a good 4* roster, but I do realize I've been able to build that mostly because the 4* character pool was much smaller0
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