Why the 4* "Transition" is impossible

Sandwichboy

Using the argument that demiurge has to make money as justification for their current business model doesn't work when you take into account all the other games that need to generate continual revenue (f2p, mmos, moba, etc) don't all entirely rely on skinner box meta design and cater only to the upper percentile of players who have no problem dishing out cash to get what they want. It's an unsustainable business model. The vets who keep pushing for more more more of the latest content are a finite resource, particularly since nothing is being done to really entice new players who look at the giant uphill climb and a release schedule that is giving them nothing they have any chance of using for a year, and respond with "maybe I'll play something else". Forcing people to either play your game like it's a job and/or dish out enough money to fly them around the world several times in order to keep up with the content burns people out. And when you burn out the people who are spending the most time and money on your game, you are sinking your own product.

kalex716

rawfsu wrote:

The inherent problem is Demiurge has to make money. Unlike game consoles, I imagine MPQ costs money to maintain on a regular basis. New graphics, updated content, new characters, new content, and everything else translates into more costs that demands we spend money. We see a finite amount of this when we buy games at home, but eventually, it comes to an end. I'm going to age myself, but look at games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance, MUA 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, etc.. Developers sell the game for $60, plug in some extra stuff for X amount of money, then that's that. This is why I believe the home console venture may not be a success, but that's a different conversation. D3 has to add things to MPQ continually in order for it to stay relevant. I'm as frustrated as the majority of the player base as well, excluding the whales of course, but it is what it is. I'm just glad I can still play, and I must find satisfaction in that. I don't even know that if MPQ DID charge for the download, if they could change things then either. We must be constantly enticed to buy, buy, buy, and this is the pattern they've found works. IT SUCKS, but then again, so would being out of business!

I want to give them my money though. I want to have options to spend a reasonable amount of money on their product, and extract value for that transaction in a way that makes sense to me as a player. Right now, nothing makes sense to me though.

Let me help you Demiurge, take my money!!!! What I won't do however, is buy **** token packs and drop 20 bucks on a single 4 star cover like the current model suggests I need to do. Its insanity.

Dauthi

Dauthi wrote:

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.

Accidentally erased this post, but I am pretty sure it was good.

iamxzo

Totally agree with everything!

Feedthebeast

Thank you Snowcatt, that was where I was trying to get at on my post but my english is mediocre and you made some valed points. My hopes are devs will look into it but I highly doubt it.

Unknown

I was thinking about this today, the current token setup and rates pretty much originated back when 4 stars were collectible and there was barely any.

If 4 star is the new 3 star shouldnt the tokens reflect this a bit better now?

SnowcaTT

Dauthi wrote:

I want to add that as your roster of 4*s increase, your ability to gain 4*s rapidly declines. This is being countered by 4* DDQ which have the opposite effect, the better your roster the more tokens you can get. The problem is, it isn't doing it enough. The mid/top end needs more options to gain more legendary tokens, because when the odds come down to (lets say) flipping a coin whether you gain a cover you need or not, 1 chance every 5 days isn't good enough.

This is certainly one of the threads in the OP, and one that is most commonly riffed on through here. I completely agree - I waited on opening legendaries until there were 10% odds on 5*, and I threw away I think 8 of 18 that day. I've done pretty well - have about half of the needed covers for 4*'s after opening those. Which gives the problem you mention - half of the covers I get I'll end up tossing. I never go after 1300 for exactly that reason.

The "good" part is that the release will out-pace what I'm getting, and it will be rare to ever keep up getting needed covers.

But really that just emphasizes the bad part - vets who have had IW covered long before I did will be pulling her in a year, while they still are missing lots of IM covers. When your 1K rewards get you 1/1/1 in six months, and your legendary odds of a specific cover are 1/60 and constantly going down each release...something needs to be done. It sounds like there is a plan in the works - but that needs to get implemented sooner rather than later.

CaptainFreaky

SnowcaTT wrote:

But really that just emphasizes the bad part - vets who have had IW covered long before I did will be pulling her in a year, while they still are missing lots of IM covers. When your 1K rewards get you 1/1/1 in six months, and your legendary odds of a specific cover are 1/60 and constantly going down each release...something needs to be done. It sounds like there is a plan in the works - but that needs to get implemented sooner rather than later.

Totally agree - the current pace for 4* cover acquisition now is still significantly slower than 3* cover acquisition has ever been (with the possible exception of 4* not being vaulted like 3* once were). 4* should be more rare and/or require more work to achieve than a 3* cover - hopefully nobody disagrees with this. But the gap to achieve 4* covers is still so wide that more and more people are running out of gas as they complete 3*'s but have no way to progress further in a meaningful way.

I think the dev's and the beancounters are trying to figure out how to stretch out people's progression but not have it so hard that people simply stop playing because they can no longer significantly progress. Right now, 4* transition (being defined as having a fair number of 4* characters with at least 10 covers) is simply too long. I think they will very very slowy increase the flow of 4* covers but they won't do it fast enough to make many of us happy - it's just the nature of how they think. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I doubt I will. I'm pretty much bracing for forum revolt and/or dissatisfaction to the "new juice" they are about to introduce -> we'll have to look at whatever they announce through lens of conservatism they tend to exhibit.

SnowcaTT

CaptainFreaky wrote:

I think the dev's and the beancounters are trying to figure out how to stretch out people's progression but not have it so hard that people simply stop playing because they can no longer significantly progress. Right now, 4* transition (being defined as having a fair number of 4* characters with at least 10 covers) is simply too long. I think they will very very slowy increase the flow of 4* covers but they won't do it fast enough to make many of us happy - it's just the nature of how they think.

That's what I don't get - they must make the vast amount of money from these from the whales who buy the characters almost right away. I see plenty of max Rulks out there already - so they can take full advantage of the "new character boost" they get for all of the newest PVE/PVP. That's great! And they'll have them maxed for all future boost rotations as well, take full advantage!

But after those first couple of weeks/months (after their "new character boost" is gone) - start putting them out there in tokens that are given out much more frequently, or put them into PVP rewards for alliances - something like that. You've still sold the early ones to the whales, they've gotten a bigger advantage from them.

The thought must be you are losing money from folks who would whale later (during hp sales?), or from those who would buy HP so they can constantly hit 1300 for the legendary tokens...although if those are the only way to get 5*, those who would hit them every time will continue to...

It must be that they are shifting monitization slowly to the 5* transition, but they have to keep it on the 4*'s until the 5*'s are fully ready to absorb the money inflow. It's the continued increase in 4*'s during that transition that is really frustrating.

udonomefoo

SnowcaTT wrote:

It's the continued increase in 4*'s during that transition that is really frustrating.

This. I just want one decent 4 that I can play with, instead of having 4-7 covers on 15 of them.

CaptainFreaky

udonomefoo wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

It's the continued increase in 4*'s during that transition that is really frustrating.

This. I just want one decent 4 that I can play with, instead of having 4-7 covers on 15 of them.

I wish I could upvote this 1000x

fmftint

Story mode needs a progression 4* between the 3* cover and
You should be able to earn/improve all essential characters during an event

It's time for this to happen

Pogo

I emphatically agree with the call for cheaper roster slots. I use my HP for nothing but roster (as I assume most other free players do). My roster is in the mid-30s and I'm starting to collect single covers of a bunch of 4-stars, with enough unclaimed 3/4-star rewards to make me nervous. With how slow/expensive it is to strengthen a new character (even at 3-stars), it doesn't really do players any favors to add new characters and further tank the probability of expanding the ones they need.

MrBowers

I would like to see the 4 star node for ddq change to a survival node where enemies could start around the 190 mark and at at the end be around 220-230 mark. You could even make a certain 4 star essential but at least they would have support from 3 stars

SnowcaTT

Dauthi wrote:

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.

The more I think about this, the more I see similarities between my own roster and thinking. Here I go with characters, their level, and their possible level (I'll just ignore if they aren't "properly" covered):

X-Force - 270/270
Thor - 270/270
Hulkbuster - 270/270
Devil Dinosaur - 220/270
Nick - 210/270
Invisible Woman - 172/270
Starlord - 172/270

**** End 4*s with 13 covers - note they are all the oldest ones! ****

Elektra - 172/206 (next 4* daily drop for me will give me 13 covers)
Kingpin - 172/206
Carnage - 172/206
Professor X - 172/206
Jean Grey - 172/206 (just bought two purple, after doing the math from OP)
Antman - 168/168 (8 covers)


**** End of 4*'s with moderate covers, all the "middle" ones. Now the dropoff: ****

Deadpool - 5/1/0 135/152
Thing 1/1/1 135/135
Red Hulk - 1/3/1 115/115
Cyclops - 1/2/2 111/111
Mr Fantastic - 0/3/1 111/111
Sam Wilson - 2/2/0 106/106
Iceman - 1/1/0 74/74

I never run PVE's except at the end, so I might end up with one cover from that and one cover from the PVP right after as they release them. I've gotten "lucky" since releases and pulled a Sam, Ice, Two MrF, one Cyc, one Hulk. Some, like Thing and Carnage covers, I went for 1300 in PVP when they were featured - something I don't do now that it's a random cover from legendary token.

You can see like Dauthi I have a huge dropoff - even earlier, with DP and Thing down there. All of these are the newer ones - it's impossible to get covers quickly for these with so many characters diluting the pool. I see these getting their turn soon DDQ's and it's pretty hopless for most of them.

I look at the new characters, and just shrug them off as impossible honestly. Hopefully I can cover that 2nd tier, but what would it take to cover the third tier - lots of money or 2-3 years (more) of play? They simply look quite impossible outside of lucky pulls at this time.

Also note the "best" covered of the newest ones for both of these rosters are Cyc and Hulk: anniversary events that weren't typical PVE's and gave out 1/1/1 + 1 for following PVP, four covers right away. If only every event were like that! Honestly, giving out 1/1/1 for each 4* as daily drops in the 2nd year (so newbies could get the roster slots ready) wouldn't kill the game economy but enhance it - then everyone could actually buy the covers if they wanted to!

Pongie

Posted this in another thread so I'm going to repeat it here

Pongie wrote:

http://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Pong ... /97/diff/2

A total of 70 4* covers gained. That's over 1 a day! Where as the 8 months before that it was a total of 65 4* covers over that period, that's about 1 cover every 4 days.

edit: interesting that you are also about the same rate at 78 4* covers in the roughly same amount of time (your revisions is 8 days more with 8 more covers)

http://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/TxMo ... 31/diff/18

XandorXerxes

Pongie wrote:

Posted this in another thread so I'm going to repeat it here <br abp="749"><br abp="750">

Pongie wrote:

<br abp="751">http://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Pongie/revisions/97/diff/2<br abp="752"><br abp="753">A total of 70 4* covers gained. That's over 1 a day! Where as the 8 months before that it was a total of 65 4* covers over that period, that's about 1 cover every 4 days.<br abp="754"><br abp="755">edit: interesting that you are also about the same rate at 78 4* covers in the roughly same amount of time (your revisions is 8 days more with 8 more covers)<br abp="756"><br abp="757">http://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/TxMoose/revisions/31/diff/18

Not entirely sure what you're comparing when you refer to the 65 covers - is that how many you had before you started tracking 8 months ago?

If you want an accurate assessment of how it is going to be to progress from someone who just got to 3* land, remove all 4* covers from luck-based draws (any covers from non-legendary tokens), initial PvE/PvPs (because they can't get those now), and alliance rewards (new to 3* is not likely to be earning 4* alliance rewards).

I'm going to estimate about 104 PvPs in an 8-month period (1 season / mo, 10 / season, 3 off-seasons), so if a player hits 1K every PvP over 8 months he or she will earn 104 4*s (approximately 5 covers per 4*). Hitting every season sim and legendary token, that's another 16. Up to 120. At 3 PvEs every 2 weeks, and a legendary token each time, that's another 48 legendary tokens (3x2 /mo, x8). Up to 168. So, just to keep up a player has to get every PvP / PvE reward and then get another 27 from alliance and luck in order to keep up with the current releases. We'll say the player wins 1/3 DDQs too, so that's another 16, up to 184 (8-9 per character).

Now let's assume no additional 4*s come out (good luck with that) and that the player is opening every legendary token and not getting any 5*s and is only getting covers he or she needs(super lucky player). Is requiring players to play optimally for a full year to really transition to 4* reasonable to you? Assume the more likely scenario where the number of 4*s being released is constant, which I believe is very likely. Is 2 years of optimal play for a 3* star reasonable to transition to 4*? To build a usable 4* character without having to rely on luck?

Even worse, what if the person has *bad* luck and every single legendary token is for bottom-tier characters or covers he or she has already maxed. It'd take that person over 3 years of optimal play to get a usable, top-tier 4*.

That's not a match-3 game, that's more grinding than a Korean MMO.

Pongie

XandorXerxes wrote:

Not entirely sure what you're comparing when you refer to the 65 covers - is that how many you had before you started tracking 8 months ago?

Yes, that's how many I had before I started tracking. It may have been slightly higher as I sold a lot of 4* covers during my 3* transition due to lack of roster slots.

I'm not arguing that the 4* transition is acceptable but I'm just pointing out the fact that the rate at which 4* covers are accessible have increased by a large margin.

XandorXerxes

Pongie wrote:

XandorXerxes wrote:

Not entirely sure what you're comparing when you refer to the 65 covers - is that how many you had before you started tracking 8 months ago?

Yes, that's how many I had before I started tracking. It may have been slightly higher as I sold a lot of 4* covers during my 3* transition due to lack of roster slots.

I'm not arguing that the 4* transition is acceptable but I'm just pointing out the fact that the rate at which 4* covers are accessible have increased by a large margin.

That's true, but that's also taking into account that you were a 1-2* player at some point and not earning 4*s with any regularity. I don't think SnowcaTT is attempting to argue that it's not easier to get a 4* now, just that given the pace of releases and the sheer number of existing 4*s the transition isn't really happening.

Even if you earned 4* covers 4x faster now than you did 8 months ago, the number of 4* covers that you've needed to earn are 3.5x as many. That makes it much more likely that when you do get a legendary token or a 4* cover, you earn one you don't need to transition. You've gone from a 1/18 shot of getting a particular cover you need to a 1/63 shot when you pull a 4*. That means to get a working 4*, you have to be much luckier than you used to - or wait much longer for the guaranteed reward.

Dauthi

I have started keeping track of opening legendary tokens, because it felt my odds were ridiculous. They are apparently, I have 27/54 covers (not counting 5*s!) which is a 50% chance to get something I need. Here is what I have gotten from 11 tokens since I posted here last:

2 x Nick Fury (blue)
2 x Nick Fury (Purple)
1 x Invisible Woman (blue)
1 x Invisible Woman (yellow)
1 x Invisible Woman (green)
1 x X-Force (green)
1 x X-Force (black)
1 x Kingpin (black)
1 x Thing (green)

I didn't need any of these. I feel like I'm not getting anywhere.