I take issue with randomness of pulls, please prove me wrong

Pylgrim

OneLastGambit wrote:

I think the main problem with the argument that people have on this issue is the stubborn refus to review all the data. They see one person post (unconfirmed with evidence - ICES word is not evidence) an unlikely (not impossible) result and that's the only thing they pay attention to because it happens to be the only thing supporting their argument, while the vast majority of the evidence (the 1000s of pulls which DON'T provide unlikely results) is continually ignored as it doesn't support their hyptothesis.

They simply say "ice confirmed this guy's results as ridiculously long so it must be true " ice also confirmed that the stats support the RNG is working perfectly fine so even using the shaky evidence of anecdeotal reporting from ice you're still only paying attention to the part that supports your argument and ignoring that which doesn't

Or rather than keep refuting that speculated claim, we could go back to the fact that chance shouldn't play a part in this. Another benefit: you'd stop seeing these claims and threads.

I have to say that I don't understand why some people seem to be fighting so hard against this petition. It is clear by their posts that they have been experiencing normal to good luck so it's hard for them to put themselves in the position of people suffering of horrible luck... but still, what is it to them that the people that have been rotting in stagnation while they progress normally, or even speedily, get a way out of the gutter? It's not like it would affect their own pulls since this is not a zero-sum situation. In fact, if this gets fixed, it will be future proofing themselves for the time when their good luck eventually fails, so they will still be coming ahead in the long run.

scottee

For the record, I personally don't mind if they eliminated the RNG from tokens. Make Legendaries let you choose a 4* cover, or trade ten of them to choose a 5* cover. All the players benefit from that. Though the business model may or may not suffer from such a change.

I just get annoyed when people swear "it's rigged" when looking at a small sample size. But it is true that eliminated the RNG would eliminate the complaints.


As for how RNG plays into the 4* transition, it's not an either/or. You utilize both the token pulls and the set covers. The rotation is slow and tokens are random, so at the beginning you keep collecting as many as you can. When the covers bunch on one hero, then you start to focus on them.

For example, I didn't target Thing, and had 2 covers after his release, 1 more in a later 1000 progression. Then I had a run of Legendaries/event tokens that gave me 3 Thing covers in a short time span. All the sudden I have 6 covers, so now I'll focus on him. The next two times he came up in rotation, I focused on both his 1000 progression and trying to get 1st place in PVP. If you strategize your slice and when you join a bracket, that can help. I got 1st place the last time he was offered with a score in the 1100's. Yes it means learning the meta. But RNG clustered around one hero, so then I started to target him. Then I can target him the next time he's first again, and maybe save 2500 HP to finish, though I probably won't for him.

In all games that utilize RNG, you can campaign for them to take it out, or you can strategize to give yourself the best chance and work around it. In poker, just because there's chance doesn't mean you don't want better cards. A 2% edge in a given hand may seem tiny, but built up over time, that's your entire profit. In MPQ, yes tokens are random, but that 3% chance at a 4* in event tokens works a lot better for you when you have 50 of them over 20 of them. Same with Legendary tokens.

Pylgrim

scottee wrote:

For the record, I personally don't mind if they eliminated the RNG from tokens. Make Legendaries let you choose a 4* cover, or trade ten of them to choose a 5* cover. All the players benefit from that. Though the business model may or may not suffer from such a change.

I just get annoyed when people swear "it's rigged" when looking at a small sample size. But it is true that eliminated the RNG would eliminate the complaints.


As for how RNG plays into the 4* transition, it's not an either/or. You utilize both the token pulls and the set covers. The rotation is slow and tokens are random, so at the beginning you keep collecting as many as you can. When the covers bunch on one hero, then you start to focus on them.

For example, I didn't target Thing, and had 2 covers after his release, 1 more in a later 1000 progression. Then I had a run of Legendaries/event tokens that gave me 3 Thing covers in a short time span. All the sudden I have 6 covers, so now I'll focus on him. The next two times he came up in rotation, I focused on both his 1000 progression and trying to get 1st place in PVP. If you strategize your slice and when you join a bracket, that can help. I got 1st place the last time he was offered with a score in the 1100's. Yes it means learning the meta. But RNG clustered around one hero, so then I started to target him. Then I can target him the next time he's first again, and maybe save 2500 HP to finish, though I probably won't for him.

In all games that utilize RNG, you can campaign for them to take it out, or you can strategize to give yourself the best chance and work around it. In poker, just because there's chance doesn't mean you don't want better cards. A 2% edge in a given hand may seem tiny, but built up over time, that's your entire profit. In MPQ, yes tokens are random, but that 3% chance at a 4* in event tokens works a lot better for you when you have 50 of them over 20 of them. Same with Legendary tokens.

This is all great advice, but note how what basically sent you on the way to achieve this was a run of mildly extraordinary luck. Imagine if instead of three Things you drew 3 IWs. What about 5? What about 5 AND 4 X-Forces? (after having maxed those characters long ago). What kind of progress would have you plotted with that? Asking for a friend here, who opened exactly that (hint, it is me, I am that friend).

It's funny that in your example you talk about the Thing. I haven't opened a single Thing, ever, since his release. I have only the 6 covers I've earned ever since (1/1/4) You can only level him to 135 with that few covers, and let me tell you, defeating a 270 Human Torch with such **** Thing was impossible. I know because I tried 20 times. I'm expecting that you didn't have much trouble with that node with your well-covered Thing and got another Legendary Token. In other words, good luck (coupled with effort and wit on your part) begot more good luck. My own **** luck ensured that no matter my effort and wit, my chances of progress are diminished in a compound way through time, when compared to yours. Please tell me that now you can see how chance arbitrarily sets players apart and why it shouldn't be used when the sampling (the availability of draws, and thus, the opportunity of correction and recovery) is so small.

scottee

Pylgrim wrote:

scottee wrote:

For the record, I personally don't mind if they eliminated the RNG from tokens. Make Legendaries let you choose a 4* cover, or trade ten of them to choose a 5* cover. All the players benefit from that. Though the business model may or may not suffer from such a change.

I just get annoyed when people swear "it's rigged" when looking at a small sample size. But it is true that eliminated the RNG would eliminate the complaints.


As for how RNG plays into the 4* transition, it's not an either/or. You utilize both the token pulls and the set covers. The rotation is slow and tokens are random, so at the beginning you keep collecting as many as you can. When the covers bunch on one hero, then you start to focus on them.

For example, I didn't target Thing, and had 2 covers after his release, 1 more in a later 1000 progression. Then I had a run of Legendaries/event tokens that gave me 3 Thing covers in a short time span. All the sudden I have 6 covers, so now I'll focus on him. The next two times he came up in rotation, I focused on both his 1000 progression and trying to get 1st place in PVP. If you strategize your slice and when you join a bracket, that can help. I got 1st place the last time he was offered with a score in the 1100's. Yes it means learning the meta. But RNG clustered around one hero, so then I started to target him. Then I can target him the next time he's first again, and maybe save 2500 HP to finish, though I probably won't for him.

In all games that utilize RNG, you can campaign for them to take it out, or you can strategize to give yourself the best chance and work around it. In poker, just because there's chance doesn't mean you don't want better cards. A 2% edge in a given hand may seem tiny, but built up over time, that's your entire profit. In MPQ, yes tokens are random, but that 3% chance at a 4* in event tokens works a lot better for you when you have 50 of them over 20 of them. Same with Legendary tokens.

This is all great advice, but note how what basically sent you on the way to achieve this was a run of mildly extraordinary luck. Imagine if instead of three Things you drew 3 IWs. What about 5? What about 5 AND 4 X-Forces? (after having maxed those characters long ago). What kind of progress would have you plotted with that? Asking for a friend here, who opened exactly that (hint, it is me, I am that friend).

It's funny that in your example you talk about the Thing. I haven't opened a single Thing, ever, since his release. I have only the 6 covers I've earned ever since (1/1/4) You can only level him to 135 with that few covers, and let me tell you, defeating a 270 Human Torch with such **** Thing was impossible. I know because I tried 20 times. I'm expecting that you didn't have much trouble with that node with your well-covered Thing and got another Legendary Token. In other words, good luck (coupled with effort and wit on your part) begot more good luck. My own **** luck ensured that no matter my effort and wit, my chances of progress are diminished in a compound way through time, when compared to yours. Please tell me that now you can see how chance arbitrarily sets players apart and why it shouldn't be used when the sampling (the availability of draws, and thus, the opportunity of correction and recovery) is so small.

Sorry for not being clear. I probably did open 5 IW's and 4 XFW dupes in that time. I use the example because I don't consider Thing top-tier, but you use what you can get when you're breaking into a new tier.

That's how you work around chance. It's not incredible luck that I got 3 Thing covers, because I didn't really want to level Thing. Incredibly luck would have been 3 Jean Grey covers that I needed, or 3 XFDP covers so I could make him useful. But because it bunched on Thing, who is maybe mid-tier, then I decided to focus on him.

If you're trying to break into the 4* tier, you should absolutely rejoice if you get 4 XFW covers, because now you can focus on him. If you already have XFW fully covered, then you're already partially in the 4* tier. Great. Use him to win more 4* covers. The 1000 progression should be a lot easier if you have fully covered XFW.

There's a reason there's the phrase "You play the hand you're dealt." There's randomness in almost every game. All you do is try to do the best with how the cards or dice or gems or covers fall to you. Bad runs happen to everyone. Good poker players don't win because they consistently get better cards than everyone else.

This, like many many others, is a game where chance is involved. Chance has always been involved. I get that it sucks when you go on a bad run of token draws. But people seem to be saying that they don't want chance in a game when it doesn't seem like the devs will ever take it out. You can keep asking them to take it out, you can work around it, or you can move on. The latter two choices can lead to contentment, while the former never will.

Pylgrim

scottee wrote:

Sorry for not being clear. I probably did open 5 IW's and 4 XFW dupes in that time. I use the example because I don't consider Thing top-tier, but you use what you can get when you're breaking into a new tier.

I don't know how many tokens you opened then, but when I opened those 9 covers, they constituted the 75% of my draws. I'm thinking you probably are exaggerating when you say 5 IWs and 4 XFs, because it's a very unlikely run, to begin with, but I am not exaggerating. I literally opened those exact amounts the first couple months that LTs were released. Besides them I opened two other covers I already had maxed (Elektra's and Starlord's) and two other I could use of two different characters. 3 covers I needed of the same 4*, even a middle-pack one like Thing would have been tremendous progress. Luck did have a strong impact in the way we moved forward.

That's how you work around chance. It's not incredible luck that I got 3 Thing covers, because I didn't really want to level Thing. Incredibly luck would have been 3 Jean Grey covers that I needed, or 3 XFDP covers so I could make him useful. But because it bunched on Thing, who is maybe mid-tier, then I decided to focus on him.

I said "mildly extraordinary", not as in incredible, but as in "out of the norm". Drawing three covers of the same character among 18 or however many 4*s there were back then in a few draws is a significant deviation from the expected numbers, if nowhere as big as the deviation on my 5 IWs and 4 XFs out of 13 draws. Your mildly extraordinary good luck perhaps wouldn't put you much further ahead of people drawing the expected averages, but it puts you leaps ahead of someone with a greatly extraordinary bad luck like I. And let's not even start thinking about those with greatly extraordinary good luck such as the guy that almost covered a 5*.

If you're trying to break into the 4* tier, you should absolutely rejoice if you get 4 XFW covers, because now you can focus on him. If you already have XFW fully covered, then you're already partially in the 4* tier. Great. Use him to win more 4* covers. The 1000 progression should be a lot easier if you have fully covered XFW.

This sounds kinda patronising because I know that you know exactly the limits of usefulness of X-Force. I maxed it around one year ago, and I've been hitting the 1k progression reward ever since they put a 4* in there. However, the only times I have used X-Force for such purpose is when he's buffed. Any other time, my buffed maxed 3*s and the characters that are synergistic with them are a much more reliable way of climbing and slightly less tempting for potential attackers. Additionally, as I've pointed before, due to dilution, the 1k progression reward is an extremely slow way of transitioning into 4*s, if not aided by luck, and the reason why my Hulkbuster still only has 2 red covers. Anyone who drew at some point at least two more red covers has such a leg up on me that it's not funny. Hulkbuster's speed, HP and reliability almost trivialises the climb to 1.3k and more tokens, which right now is all but out of the scope of my possibilities.

There's a reason there's the phrase "You play the hand you're dealt." There's randomness in almost every game. All you do is try to do the best with how the cards or dice or gems or covers fall to you. Bad runs happen to everyone. Good poker players don't win because they consistently get better cards than everyone else.

This, like many many others, is a game where chance is involved. Chance has always been involved. I get that it sucks when you go on a bad run of token draws. But people seem to be saying that they don't want chance in a game when it doesn't seem like the devs will ever take it out. You can keep asking them to take it out, you can work around it, or you can move on. The latter two choices can lead to contentment, while the former never will.

I'm sorry, are you implying that I'm not playing the hand that I'm dealt? That I'm not doing my best with whatever little I have? If you stopped for a second to think you'd realise that I may have been, in fact, trying harder than people who were aided by luck and got a good HB, or JG, or whatever, quickly. That I have been playing 4* DDQs dozens of times with my underlevelled, undercovered characters until I eked a victory, while people aided by luck cruised though them without breaking a single health pack. And then, after all that additional effort, made necessary by my poor luck, I keep drawing mothertinykittying IW, further lowering my future probabilities of doing well. AND I AM SUPPOSED TO BE CONTENTED???

You very transparently cannot see my point because you have not been this unlucky. I have already several times admitted I understand the necessity of chance and it's role in the game. It is you the one who doesn't understand, or doesn't want to, that when we're dealing with the scarcity of draws represented by the LTs, a bad luck run becomes insurmountable and compounds through time as it undermines one's ability to get more draws. Even if my luck suddenly turned in such ways that I basically drew a fully formed Hulkbuster, people who had better luck than I through these months and were able to capitalise on it, are already way ahead of me, even though we put the same kinds of effort towards it! The fact that you don't manage to see how that's monstrously unfair shows how entitled your slightly positive fortune has made you.

Yes, chance is by nature terribly unfair and I already have real life to enjoy that "feature". I don't want to see it in a game, which is supposed to be a form of escapism.

scottee

Um, people are getting legendary tokens with XForce/Fist. But continue to think he's limited. In fact people are getting legendary tokens in the First Avenger event with just 3*'s., but that's another story.

If token pulls are your main source of progression, then less, a bad run can slow your progress. Just because you recently got only 20% usable 4*s doesn't mean you'll always get only 20% usable 4*.

If your main source of progression is sources outside of legendaries, a bad token run doesn't slow you down as much.

And playing the hand you're dealt means using Kingpin if he's the only decent hero you have. Or Fury. I even rocked Elektra for a while. So while XFW isn't top tier, he's still better than any unboosted 3*. He can help win more legendaries at 1300, which, even if you're only still pulling 20% useful covers, is still progress.

Because I have more 4*s maxed, I pull less than half useful covers from legendaries. My current legendary run has been 4-5 Carnages in the last 3 weeks when I already have him maxed. Lots of my pulls are useless. Oh well, that's the game, I'll try to earn another legendary because that 15% chance I get something truly useful is more than a 0% chance.

You never lose progress in this game. Missing out 4* pulls doesn't keep you from achieving the same points in PVP. People have been using Hulk/Patch to get the 1000 progress cover for a long time now. Just because others are getting more 4*s doesn't mean the combo doesn't work with the same frequency.

If anything, over time, it's becoming easier to get the 1000 and 1300 progression. I encountered multiple people tonight in the First Avenger event running unboosted Cage/Fist, and they were above 1300. I didn't check their roster, but they might be getting 0% useful 4* covers.

A certain percentage of progress relies on the luck of tokens. But it's not 100%. So yes, bad luck can seem devastating, especially when you work so hard for a legendary token and they're so rare. If legendary tokens are the only way you're trying to earn 4*s, then yeah, you'll make no progress in the game. But for someone working the 4* transition, legendary tokens account for less than 50% of the 4* covers you'll be earning. The 1000 progression provides three 4*s a week. PVE can only give you 1.5 legendaries a week, and DDQ gives you probably around .25 legendaries a week for a beginning 4* roster.

But let's round up and say it actually is 50/50.

So back to the original premise of the thread. Legendary tokens have only been out a little while. So it's easy to think a bad run in the early months of LTs has completely ruined your game. But even if you're the unluckiest person in the world and you get 0 useful covers in every single legendary token you open, that's at most only slowing half your 4* progress (in fact much less). And since the tokens aren't rigged, it's incredibly unlikely that you'll have a world's worst run in the future. It's more likely you'll have a regular run of tokens. It's only if you think they're rigged that let's say a bad run of only 20% useful covers is ALWAYS going to be 20%.

If people want to keep petitioning MPQ to get rid of legendary tokens go ahead. But progress was much harder before they were implemented. Without other progress steps in place, removing legendary tokens in PVE and in DDQ would be far worse on 4* progress than any bad run of luck in the legendaries. I'd personally prefer if they had left the set cover at 1300 and added the LT at 1500 or something like that.

Pylgrim

scottee wrote:

Um, people are getting legendary tokens with XForce/Fist. But continue to think he's limited. In fact people are getting legendary tokens in the First Avenger event with just 3*'s., but that's another story.

If token pulls are your main source of progression, then less, a bad run can slow your progress. Just because you recently got only 20% usable 4*s doesn't mean you'll always get only 20% usable 4*.

If your main source of progression is sources outside of legendaries, a bad token run doesn't slow you down as much.

And playing the hand you're dealt means using Kingpin if he's the only decent hero you have. Or Fury. I even rocked Elektra for a while. So while XFW isn't top tier, he's still better than any unboosted 3*. He can help win more legendaries at 1300, which, even if you're only still pulling 20% useful covers, is still progress.

Because I have more 4*s maxed, I pull less than half useful covers from legendaries. My current legendary run has been 4-5 Carnages in the last 3 weeks when I already have him maxed. Lots of my pulls are useless. Oh well, that's the game, I'll try to earn another legendary because that 15% chance I get something truly useful is more than a 0% chance.

You never lose progress in this game. Missing out 4* pulls doesn't keep you from achieving the same points in PVP. People have been using Hulk/Patch to get the 1000 progress cover for a long time now. Just because others are getting more 4*s doesn't mean the combo doesn't work with the same frequency.

If anything, over time, it's becoming easier to get the 1000 and 1300 progression. I encountered multiple people tonight in the First Avenger event running unboosted Cage/Fist, and they were above 1300. I didn't check their roster, but they might be getting 0% useful 4* covers.

A certain percentage of progress relies on the luck of tokens. But it's not 100%. So yes, bad luck can seem devastating, especially when you work so hard for a legendary token and they're so rare. If legendary tokens are the only way you're trying to earn 4*s, then yeah, you'll make no progress in the game. But for someone working the 4* transition, legendary tokens account for less than 50% of the 4* covers you'll be earning. The 1000 progression provides three 4*s a week. PVE can only give you 1.5 legendaries a week, and DDQ gives you probably around .25 legendaries a week for a beginning 4* roster.

But let's round up and say it actually is 50/50.

So back to the original premise of the thread. Legendary tokens have only been out a little while. So it's easy to think a bad run in the early months of LTs has completely ruined your game. But even if you're the unluckiest person in the world and you get 0 useful covers in every single legendary token you open, that's at most only slowing half your 4* progress (in fact much less). And since the tokens aren't rigged, it's incredibly unlikely that you'll have a world's worst run in the future. It's more likely you'll have a regular run of tokens. It's only if you think they're rigged that let's say a bad run of only 20% useful covers is ALWAYS going to be 20%.

If people want to keep petitioning MPQ to get rid of legendary tokens go ahead. But progress was much harder before they were implemented. Without other progress steps in place, removing legendary tokens in PVE and in DDQ would be far worse on 4* progress than any bad run of luck in the legendaries. I'd personally prefer if they had left the set cover at 1300 and added the LT at 1500 or something like that.

Yes, X-Force is better than most unbuffed 3*s. But there are buffed 3*s in every PVP and more often than not, they are better than X-Force. Hell, with a good featured character, IF + unbuffed Cyclops is usually as good as X-Force. But you are missing the point.

1.3k is possible for people without the most powerful characters, be 3* or 4*, yes, but at what cost? Going through the combined HP of the maxed and buffed 4*s that usually make the meta above 1k, takes 3* and lower 4* lots of time (and health). In the meantime, people climbing with those same maxed and buffed 4*s can eat that team like quick snacks. Point in case is that the lower your team is compared with the meta, the less games you can risk to hop at a time, the more incentivised players are to attack you, and the higher amount of shields you have to put up. It requires lots of scarce and expensive HP, lots of timing your busy day around hops, and lots of time spent in Line chat to find good targets during the few seconds that they are exposed. Possible? Yes. Increasingly demanding and difficult for people with lower rosters? Definitely. Does Luck have a big impact in how lowly or highly your roster approaches the challenge, compared to another person's with different luck? Hell yeah.

I wish I had a good Kingpin (2/4/1). My Fury is 3/3/4, and again, several buffed 3*s are much better than him. Not to mention better than Elektra.

You keep parroting that it is bad to make of LTs the only way of progress. I keep agreeing, but pointing that the only other reliable source of 4*s is the 1k progression reward and that if you depend on it without getting lucky with your draws, it'd be an extremely slow process even to fully cover a single character, going easily over a year. You keep ignoring that I say that to be able to imply that I'm stupid for relying on LTs for progression, and so here we are.

You present yourself as a great example of tolerance when you miss your 15% chance to get a cover you need, but keep trying, stoically. Apparently you haven't understood that I have failed 75% of my draws when my expected success rate is over 80%. I only have 2 maxed 4*s. 14 out of 21 of my 4*s have less than 6 covers, ten have less than 4. six have 2 or less. And yet I, impossibly, keep drawing the same old and weak ones, over and over. Please, I beg you try to imagine what is it like instead of keep implying that I'm just lazy and I'm not doing my part.

And I don't know where did you get that I, or anyone is petitioning for the removal of LTs. No one wants that. As deeply flawed as they are, their existence is better than their absence (unless I want to be a teensy bit petty and say that it has allowed some people to pull far ahead from others, unfairly. Or are you going to tell me that the guy that was opening OML for every time I opened IW didn't pull ahead of me, almost comically in its magnitude?) We are clamouring to make them a fairer and more reliable help in the 4* transition and there are several ways of achieving that without completely removing the luck component. I really don't understand how that seems too much to ask for you.

scottee

I actually underquoted. You have a 25% success rate, and I used 20% in my hypothetical. My apologies.

You misunderstand the meta. The people reaching 1000 with 3*s take 0 HP. The ones making 1300 are using the same amount of HP as someone with decent but not great 4*s.

People were originally saying the RNG is rigged. I'm saying it's not.

Some, like you Pylgrim, are saying that they've been really unlucky with token pulls. I'm agreeing that bad luck sucks.

After I've agreed, I'm saying it's not disastrous. Given that luck can suck big time, I choose to focus on what I can control.

For example, besides the 1000 progression and LT's, I can control strategizing, how else can I get 4*s. 1st place PVP. That sounds implausible, but I'll humor myself. It would require a) picking a dry slice and b) getting a bracket without too many others going after 1st and no whales. For a), slice 5 has been pretty dry for me. For b), very active players start events ahead of time, so I don't start ahead of time. People trying to snipe placement rewards start very late, so I don't start very late. So decide to start a few hours after the slice opens. What do you know? I get brackets that are winnable. For the two 4* covers I targeted in the last two weeks, I got 1st place with a score of 1200, when 1120 would have won it. I got another 1st place with 1100something, when 1050 would have won it. Zero luck involved. Regular amount of shield hops, and planning how to take a lead early so others would be discouraged from attempting the climb. This can be done with 3*s, as all that matters is speed, as you're only open for less than 5 min during shield hops.

I'm acknowledging chance, assuming chance, and then moving on to what I can control.

Ludaa

Hey everyone, just go win 1st place if you want any amount of control over your progress.

That is what I'm reading. The scales are tipped too far into Chance's corner. 1-2 people in every bracket can control their progression with tons of time and resources, everyone else has to hope and pray their cover and color comes up.

scottee

I mainly jumped in this thread to stop the spread of misinformation that the RNG was rigged, as misinformation does a disservice to newer players.

Keep asking the devs to make changes to the system for the better, as we need some to do that. That's just not my focus. I'm always trying to figure out how to do better under the current system.

I think I'm used to the old forum when players mainly asked other players for help with progression. I feel the trend is now to ask the feeds devs for help with progression.

Good luck all.

dr tinykittylove

scottee wrote:

I mainly jumped in this thread to stop the spread of misinformation that the RNG was rigged, as misinformation does a disservice to newer players.

Keep asking the devs to make changes to the system for the better, as we need some to do that. That's just not my focus. I'm always trying to figure out how to do better under the current system.

I think I'm used to the old forum when players mainly asked other players for help with progression. I feel the trend is now to ask the feeds devs for help with progression.

Good luck all.

I think the discussion has moved on from the initial conplaint that pulls were rigged to the issue of the role of luck in progression, and that's why you're getting such a strong response.

A lot of the posters (well, some anyway) aren't asking for progression on a plate, so to speak, at least that's how I've read it.

You're right though that many people are asking the devs for help with progression - and the reason is simply that the release rate has outpaced any reasonable hope of progression without relying on luck. That's all.

Heartburn

I relied on chance for most of my progression, and left the game when the highest tier is largely chance based. Chance is good to even out when the pulls are plentiful (standard tokens) but when they are a lot rarer you are subject to the whims of RNG.

i wanted to play with my favorite heroes but this game has not let me do this unlike the many other marvel games clearly allow (but i did find out about luke cage here so there is that) I was tired of stressing out on trying to grab characters on release and have them sit there until i luck into them. that is not fun. 25 looks like will be a weekly feat maybe more, barring any 5 point give aways in the future, that is a turtle pace given 4* are where we need to be with wild 5 s on the loose and will not break the game if we got to choose the 4 *. being able to focus build characters with in game currency would be an amazing addition and increase the fun of this game. but i already cringe when ever a red name mentions a change based on fun .
Anyways, good luck.

started MFF love it. so many deals there it feels like it is money well spent already dropped $150(had extra in budget not spending on MPQ) on various packages to build a core team with tons of crystal to spare to pick up packs of my favs. get this they are constantly balancing making garbage tier into mid - god tier with updates and uniforms so if even you favorite sucks balls at the moment they will likely get buffed in the future. doc oct suck but just got a sweet supior spiderman uniform to bring him back up into the mid tier.

OneLastGambit

Here's an interesting question for all the people outraged at what they think are not random pulls - lets say the devs confirm they are not random, they are targeted. Will you stop playing?

Pylgrim

scottee wrote:

I actually underquoted. You have a 25% success rate, and I used 20% in my hypothetical. My apologies.

You misunderstand the meta. The people reaching 1000 with 3*s take 0 HP. The ones making 1300 are using the same amount of HP as someone with decent but not great 4*s.

People were originally saying the RNG is rigged. I'm saying it's not.

Some, like you Pylgrim, are saying that they've been really unlucky with token pulls. I'm agreeing that bad luck sucks.

After I've agreed, I'm saying it's not disastrous. Given that luck can suck big time, I choose to focus on what I can control.

For example, besides the 1000 progression and LT's, I can control strategizing, how else can I get 4*s. 1st place PVP. That sounds implausible, but I'll humor myself. It would require a) picking a dry slice and b) getting a bracket without too many others going after 1st and no whales. For a), slice 5 has been pretty dry for me. For b), very active players start events ahead of time, so I don't start ahead of time. People trying to snipe placement rewards start very late, so I don't start very late. So decide to start a few hours after the slice opens. What do you know? I get brackets that are winnable. For the two 4* covers I targeted in the last two weeks, I got 1st place with a score of 1200, when 1120 would have won it. I got another 1st place with 1100something, when 1050 would have won it. Zero luck involved. Regular amount of shield hops, and planning how to take a lead early so others would be discouraged from attempting the climb. This can be done with 3*s, as all that matters is speed, as you're only open for less than 5 min during shield hops.

I'm acknowledging chance, assuming chance, and then moving on to what I can control.

Alright then. Let's say I acknowledge your superior knowledge of the meta, which allows you to place 1st with 1100 or less which is something that I have never seen myself (thanks for sharing tips, though). In theory, that allows you to halve the amount of time required to cover a given character. At 63 4* covers available (and counting), gathering let's say 4/4/4 covers of the same character with both 1k progression and top 1, would take approximately 10 months as opposed to 20. Much better but still quite slow, taking in account the way the game changes. Anyway, I never have disagreed with you about putting your focus and effort on what you can control, as that's a policy I use in my life, in general (though it rubs me the wrong way that you speak as though you are saying that I'm not really trying). I completely agree with you there and so I have been doing, or at least trying to.

That's why it baffles me that you refuse to understand and acknowledge my point. Given the same amount of effort and dedication put by two different players, the only differential is luck, which is fine to a certain extent. Luck that dictates /how/ you progress is fine. Luck that dictates /how much/ you progress, if at all is not fine, not in a game that is played for entertainment and not when a small amount of draws means that bad luck runs create significant gaps of prosperity.

The most you have deigned to acknowledge is the milquetoast, vague statement that bad luck "sucks". However you refuse to acknowledge the impact in progression, even when you yourself allowed the fact that luck is the other 50% to effort and applied knowledge's 50%. I'm going to present you a very simple situation and ask you some very simple questions: Player X and me are exactly in the same situation, a maxed roster of 3*s a maxed XF and a maxed IW plus an assortment of a few other 4* covers. After lots of hard work, but more or less the same amount of work for both of us, we both get 5 Legendary Tokens. Player X draws 5 red Hulkbusters and I draw 5 blue IWs. Now, being honest answer this: after only one month of playing, again both of us putting the same kind of effort towards it, who has earned more Legendary Tokens? Who reached PVP top 1 more frequently? Who has more HP from being able to do more games per hop, thus, shielding less? Please consider that the key factor is that I'm saying that both players are playing the same amount, both as hard and smart as they can.

I'm confident that you will have to admit that player X did much better than I for no additional merit, simply luck. Sure, my own efforts also managed to net me some rewards, but Player X got those as well! Now consider this: At the beginning of next month, Player X not only has his lucky lead of 5 Hulkbusters on me, but also whatever additional rewards he reached that I was simply in no position to obtain. So now he's got a 5HB+X lead on me. Taking in account that just 5HB gave him an additional dividend of X, the dividends obtained from 5HB+X will be significantly higher, pushing further and further the lead he's got on me. But that's the nature of chance, right? It eventually irons out statistical aberrations such as our initial good and bad luck runs. Theoretically it could take years, even millennia. But let's say it takes only 6 months until I have a run where I draw 5 HBs and he had a run of 5 IWs (ignoring the fact that at that point getting 5 Legendary Tokens will be a cakewalk for Player X compared to what it'd be to me, given the compounding dividends of 6 months of additional rewards). Now we are even, all is good right? Nope, the harm is done and my happy good luck run of 5 HBs doesn't put a dent on the progression that Player X has achieved ahead of me. The amount of sheer luck on my part that would be necessary to truly achieve evenness then is almost unimaginable. Can you still say that the effect of luck is "not disastrous"?

That is why it is very rich when you, from your position of average-to-good fortune tells me "pish tosh, luck is immaterial, you're just not trying hard enough".

Malcrof

Please keep things civil, lots of niftyness in this thread, let's try to keep it constructive and on track. Thanks

scottee

In competitive games, chance isn't necessary, but is included to keep it from being a compete meritocracy. (Or in a freemium game from it being a complete pay to win.) It gives players with less time/skill/resources/effort the possibility of beating someone higher up. It's like the difference between chess and poker. Chess has zero chance, only the best win. In poker, there's tons of chance, and while the best players end up winning in the long run, everyone still has the possibility in the short run. Chris Moneymaker wins the biggest tournament in 2003 and then the player base increases exponentially because amateurs see they have a chance to beat pros.

In an extreme MPQ example, let's say player A actually wins 1 token and player B wins 5. In a zero chance system, player A would get let's say 1 Hulkbuster cover and player B gets 5. Player B would 100% of the time get better, always have the advantage, and player A would have zero hope and probably quit.

In a chance system, even though it doesn't happen often, there's the chance that player A gets 1 Hulkbuster and player B gets 5 IWs. Even though player A played less, there's hope that he can compete.

In general, lesser skilled players who enjoy the game casually prefer the chance system. It's why thousands show up now for poker tournaments and no one casually tries to enter chess tournaments.

Funny real example, my brother only plays DDQ. He only was able to win the first legendary token there, as XFW is his only 4* with some covers. I gathered 13 LTs before they changed to 10%. So of course he got a Surfer with his one token and I got all 4*s. It took me over 25 LTs to get my first 5*, all opened with a 10% chance.

Was I a little jealous at first? Yes. But I knew I'd do better in the long run. Now he still has one 5* cover and I have four. That first single Surfer cover was more fun for him than it would have been for me.

Lots of people complain about crits in TF2, but they give the new player a 5% chance to actually kill the really good players with a crit-rocket. Is it fair? Probably not. But it gives the casual players hope, which is fun, and helps keep the masses around.

The downside of course is that chance could work the other way and screw the casual player. The hope is that less leave for this reason than are gained by the other side. In MPQ, that's seemed to have work.

simonsez

scottee wrote:

I knew I'd do better in the long run.

I was really hoping that this thread would've dropped to page 3 over the weekend...

The point you fail to grasp is that WE DON'T HAVE A LONG RUN in this game. Let's say fairly hardcore players who get a lot of the PvE progression tokens and 1300 PvP progressions will open up 200 tokens before either giving up on the game, or having this game implode in on itself and disappear. In those 200 pulls, 10% will get 14 or fewer 5^s, and 10% will get 26 or more 5*s. That's a ridiculously wide spread between such large groups of players who are doing exactly the same thing.

simonsez

OneLastGambit wrote:

ICES word is not evidence

Except when he says token pulls are 100% random?

Pylgrim

scottee wrote:

In competitive games, chance isn't necessary, but is included to keep it from being a compete meritocracy. (Or in a freemium game from it being a complete pay to win.) It gives players with less time/skill/resources/effort the possibility of beating someone higher up. It's like the difference between chess and poker. Chess has zero chance, only the best win. In poker, there's tons of chance, and while the best players end up winning in the long run, everyone still has the possibility in the short run. Chris Moneymaker wins the biggest tournament in 2003 and then the player base increases exponentially because amateurs see they have a chance to beat pros.

In an extreme MPQ example, let's say player A actually wins 1 token and player B wins 5. In a zero chance system, player A would get let's say 1 Hulkbuster cover and player B gets 5. Player B would 100% of the time get better, always have the advantage, and player A would have zero hope and probably quit.

In a chance system, even though it doesn't happen often, there's the chance that player A gets 1 Hulkbuster and player B gets 5 IWs. Even though player A played less, there's hope that he can compete.

In general, lesser skilled players who enjoy the game casually prefer the chance system. It's why thousands show up now for poker tournaments and no one casually tries to enter chess tournaments.

Funny real example, my brother only plays DDQ. He only was able to win the first legendary token there, as XFW is his only 4* with some covers. I gathered 13 LTs before they changed to 10%. So of course he got a Surfer with his one token and I got all 4*s. It took me over 25 LTs to get my first 5*, all opened with a 10% chance.

Was I a little jealous at first? Yes. But I knew I'd do better in the long run. Now he still has one 5* cover and I have four. That first single Surfer cover was more fun for him than it would have been for me.

Lots of people complain about crits in TF2, but they give the new player a 5% chance to actually kill the really good players with a crit-rocket. Is it fair? Probably not. But it gives the casual players hope, which is fun, and helps keep the masses around.

The downside of course is that chance could work the other way and screw the casual player. The hope is that less leave for this reason than are gained by the other side. In MPQ, that's seemed to have work.

As I've said before quite a bit of times, I understand the role of chance in games. I seriously do. In your examples, it gives a casual player the chance to steal victories that he wouldn't be able to, from time to time, while rightfully, getting bashed most of the times by more hardcore players. A big difference between your example and MPQ is that those are individual matches in where victory itself is the whole goal. MPQ is a never ending progression and bad luck can severely impede it as I outlined in my previous post. Bad luck is not simply taking one victory from me, it is setting me back irremediably. I'll still eventually get somewhere, but I'll get there much, much later than people with good or even just normal luck.

Also I want to note that I may be a bit more "casual" than you, in the sense that I don't go for the 1.3k progression (more out of pure despair at the idea of spending HP into getting a LT and opening another IW, than lack of capability), but I'm not a casual player. I play a lot and I've been playing for two years.

So my claim has basically two parts to it:

-Diminish or change luck impact in ways that do not impede progression or unfairly allow extreme disparity of progression speeds between players with different luck (as explained in my previous post).

-Make it so luck doesn't have the power of screwing a loyal player over and over at the highest reward point in the game. No player in my position should feel like I do right now. It's like winning the World Cup and instead of earning a trophy, you are given a bunch of boxes that potentially contain a trophy but turn out to mostly contain a manure pie on a coiled spring that splats on your face when you open the box. You have already worked way too hard for your prize to have to eat... manure in its stead.

If you go back to my first posts on the topic, the suggestion I provide of a small, quickly rotating vault addresses both of my concerns without completely eliminating the luck factor. It merely gives the player an element of control. So if I see that my vault of 10 items has 5 IWs and 4 XFs, I'll just wait until a new vault rotates in. New vault has three HBs and three IWs? You can bet I'll be opening tokens from it and if I open IWs, I'd take it soberly as a calculated risk.

mohio

I wouldn't go so far as to say pulls aren't random, but there's been a lot of clumping from everyone i've talked to or heard from, and it's clearly frustrating to a lot of people. I tracked my first 24 pulls since those are the ones I hoarded, and I remember quite a few of the ones since then, although I can't recall exactly how many more there were. From my first 24 pulls I had 5 4hor, 3 JG, 3 Mr F, 3 Ant-man, and 2 Elektra (and 2 SS, so go me?). I didn't need a single 4hor, 2 of the JG were useful and 1 antman (the 3 Mr F were "useful" only in the literal use in that I could apply them). Anyway, I've since opened 3 more 4hor covers, another 3 JG covers (I FINALLY got the last blue I needed so that at least was nice) and 3 more Elektra covers, in maybe 15 or so tokens. I've opened enough other stuff it at least feels pretty random, a Rhulk here, a Cyke there (but no more 5* and still no iceman!). But overall, 8 4hor, 6 JG, 5 Elektra over about 40 tokens (and still just the 2 5*) is pretty absurd to me. That's almost half of all my pulls in just 3 characters. I did really need 3 of those JG covers, and I'm very thankful I have her fully covered now, but I've had 4hor max covered for ages and Elektra is both bad and also fully covered for forever.

So - even if we accept that all of the token pulls are random (and I think they likely are, we just can't tell over 40-50 pulls), runs of unneeded pulls feel exceptionally bad. All that work for 1000 iso just feels like a huge gut-punch and as others have stated ad infinitum, this is supposedly the best reward in the game, so that gut-punch feel should almost never happen, not happen with regularity.

Just one last thing before I go - in regards to the progression issue argued over by scottee and pylgrim. *Maybe* Pylgrim could have done a little more to progress better. Asked for help getting to 1300, found some BC that would help weaker rosters get to 1300 with fewer shields, etc. But that still just means he's getting more LTs and relying yet again on luck for his progression. Certainly with more pulls we all would expect his luck to even out a little bit, but the whole point is that it shouldn't come down to so much luck in the first place. Also, the fact that it's all tied to luck/RNG token pulls, puts off people like Pylgrim, who might be able to hit 1300 every time, or on occasion, from even bothering to try, cause they've already gotten that gut-punch enough times, they don't want to have it happen even more. As a personal anecdote, I've been really wanting to build Iceman. I saved all my tokens until he was added, so every one of my 40-ish pulls have had him in there. I have pulled 0. He has been offered as rewards exactly twice. I'm not really one to get first in PvP, so I got my one cover during his release PvP and that's the single cover I've been sitting on ever since. So...progression on that front is completely non-existent. It's frustrating to say the least.