Give us a different way to get 5*s

Raffoon

It's possible to never get a 5* from a legendary token.

Less extreme than that, people go through long streaks where no 5*s come from a Legendary token.

It's time that there was a way to collect 5* characters without bending over and praying to the token god.

Command Points don't count, since they're simply a way to get more Legendary tokens. 720 buying you an upgrade to a 5* token that you already have is not a solution.

Dang, here I am thinking that player feedback might matter for this game. Sorry, I got carried away in my optimism again.

Never mind this, and please carry on with your practice of only making the game marginally better at long intervals, Devs.

Edit: Other people of the general population, how do you feel about the subject? Please discuss!

Unknown

Well, TECHNICALLY you can get 3 Silver Surfer covers from Daily Resupply, which you can use Command Points to fully cover.

But that's more of a technicality then a solution.

Eddiemon

They will, when they are ready to move on from 4 stars. Currently they want 4 Stars to be end game power and 5 stars to be bonuses. They still haven't fully opened the valve on acquiring 4 stars yet either.

What would be the point of letting everyone get 5 stars and keep releasing 4 stars rendered irrelevant by the 5 stars?

Raffoon

Glad to see this moved to the Suggestions and Feedback forum. Now, in addition to being ignored by the developers, it can be ignored by the rest of the forum too, since this forum gets about 1/10 the traffic of the General forum.

GothicKratos

I can lock it too, if you'd like?

In all seriousness, I think we'll see more ways to attain 5*s in the coming future. There's been a going trend in the added tiers of play where they get more and more attainable as they become fleshed out.

Raffoon

GothicKratos wrote:

I can lock it too, if you'd like?

In all seriousness, I think we'll see more ways to attain 5*s in the coming future. There's been a going trend in the added tiers of play where they get more and more attainable as they become fleshed out.

I'd very much like to see that, and I'm sure it will happen eventually. That kind of leaves us in a terrible place at the moment though, doesn't it?

It feels like command points were almost designed to do that, but somehow got changed at the last minute. Now they're just another way to get a chance at progression. The problem is, that chance can still come up negative every single time, leaving a player's progression stunted despite earning every Legendary token available.

There should be a system in place to ensure that the progression made at least somewhat matches the time and effort invested. There are tons of ways this could be done.

They could make a small vault of around 20 4/5* covers that resets every day. Save up 20 tokens and guarantee yourself 2 5*s!

They could increase your chance of drawing a 5* every time you don't. 10% would act as a base. Oh, you didn't draw a 5* in your first 10 tokens? Well that's OK, at least the chance at a 5* has been increasing by 2% each time you didn't draw one, so after 10 missed draws you have a 30% chance. Draw 10 more bad draws? Now you're at a 50% chance to draw a 5*. Oh good, you finally drew one! Back to 10% to start again.

How about spending 150-200 command points for a random 5*?

There are plenty of other ways this could be achieved. Some of them seem pretty easy to implement. So why do we get to sit here with half an implementation and no communication about how it's going to be solved? Whatever happened to the developers communicating with the community?

GothicKratos

Raffoon wrote:

It feels like command points were almost designed to do that, but somehow got changed at the last minute. Now they're just another way to get a chance at progression. The problem is, that chance can still come up negative every single time, leaving a player's progression stunted despite earning every Legendary token available.

I think Command Points were supposed to be a supplement to the 4* transitioners. LTokens feel like exactly what we've been asking for awhile; a token explicitly for high level players. I totally agree though, CoPs feel very....tacked on or unfinished. I think it's a great idea with poor implementation, which imo is basically their calling card.

Raffoon wrote:

They could make a small vault of around 20 4/5* covers that resets every day. Save up 20 tokens and guarantee yourself 2 5*s!

Personally, I like Vaults, and I think a healthy Vault for LTokens could be a good thing. It would depend on implementation.

Raffoon wrote:

They could increase your chance of drawing a 5* every time you don't. 10% would act as a base. Oh, you didn't draw a 5* in your first 10 tokens? Well that's OK, at least the chance at a 5* has been increasing by 2% each time you didn't draw one, so after 10 missed draws you have a 30% chance. Draw 10 more bad draws? Now you're at a 50% chance to draw a 5*. Oh good, you finally drew one! Back to 10% to start again.

I think this could be cool, if only explicitly for LTokens. I think there's something to say about why LTokens are sought after and why they should be cool....and those things seem to have fallen short for some people. I think this might be the best choice overall, too, because it doesn't feed into the gigantic problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's a net positive for everyone.

Raffoon wrote:

How about spending 150-200 command points for a random 5*?

This, I don't like, I like that it's pretty damn hard to whale 5*s. In my mind, they're marginally balanced because of how rare they are. That's still a pretty unreasonable margin to whale 5*s, but the lower you set the bar, the more people are going to being willing to do it.

Raffoon

GothicKratos wrote:

I think it's a great idea with poor implementation, which imo is basically their calling card.

Yeah... I think you hit the nail on the head right there. At this point, I expect it, but for some reason I keep trying to figure out ways that things could be better anyway. It's really starting to feel like farting into the wind.

GothicKratos wrote:

Personally, I like Vaults, and I think a healthy Vault for LTokens could be a good thing. It would depend on implementation.

I feel like this would be the easiest for them to implement from a technical standpoint. It feels like the type of thing they could at least test for a while with very minimal changes to the game structure or code.

GothicKratos wrote:

I think this could be cool, if only explicitly for LTokens. I think there's something to say about why LTokens are sought after and why they should be cool....and those things seem to have fallen short for some people. I think this might be the best choice overall, too, because it doesn't feed into the gigantic problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's a net positive for everyone.

This would be the most seamless to the player, but I feel like it may be a giant pain for them to implement. There's also the fact that some people don't actually want to get more 5*s because of scaling concerns or roster limitations, so this is a bad option for them.

GothicKratos wrote:

This, I don't like, I like that it's pretty damn hard to whale 5*s. In my mind, they're marginally balanced because of how rare they are. That's still a pretty unreasonable margin to whale 5*s, but the lower you set the bar, the more people are going to being willing to do it.

Well, maybe 150 is a bit generous, but 200 isn't really too far off from where it should be for an option like this, in my opinion.

In theory, a person should get 1 5* for every 10 Legendary tokens that they open, on average. So, that would imply that the cost should be 250 CP for a single random 5*. But you also have to take into account that by spending those 250 CP all at once, you're giving up 9 other 4* covers. If you set the bar at 200 CP, then you're still giving up some number of 4* covers to guarantee the 5* cover, but it's less than 9 of them, which seems a bit on the high side.

wirius

Currently 5*'s aren't meant to be obtained. 5% token pull means you would need at 13 covers...about 300 token pulls if you only pulled THAT five star and no repeat covers. Math is cruel, but never lies. They're a long term carrot to wave in front of you to keep playing. If you bought money to get these rare things, all the better for D3! Players are still barely transitioning into a meaningful 4* tier, its going to be a looong time before 5*'s are easy to get. Best you don't even notice they're there really.

Malcrof

My biggest issue with guarenteed ways to obtain 5*s, is the multitude of threads complaining how they are destroying rosters and the game/pvp etc..( i don't personally agree, but the masses seem to).. so most of these methods seems to almost force a 5* on someone who may not want them.

My idea is simple. Add a check box to the LT page.. all it does is enable/disable the pulling of 5*s from LTs. When enabled, you get a slightly higher % chance of pulling one (say 15%), when disabled, you have a 0 chance, so you can build your 4* roster without risking your scaling.

Raffoon

wirius wrote:

Currently 5*'s aren't meant to be obtained. 5% token pull means you would need at 13 covers...about 300 token pulls if you only pulled THAT five star and no repeat covers. Math is cruel, but never lies. They're a long term carrot to wave in front of you to keep playing. If you bought money to get these rare things, all the better for D3! Players are still barely transitioning into a meaningful 4* tier, its going to be a looong time before 5*'s are easy to get. Best you don't even notice they're there really.

5% would be 20 Leg tokens per 5*. The current rate is 10%. So, 1 out of every 10 pulls will give you a 5* on average. That's 130 Legendary pulls to get 13 5*s. 300 token pulls will give you around 30 covers on average. It's true that it's extremely unlikely these covers will all be for the same character.

Those are all statements of fact.

In my opinion, the issue is the "on average". Because people don't pull an infinite number of tokens, they can hit streaks one way or another. For some people that "on average" means that out of 100 pulls, they get 0,1, or 2 5* covers. For some people that "on average" means that they get 20 5* covers with 100 Legendary pulls. Most people will get around 10%, but there can be a lot of variation when the number of pulls that each person is making is small.

What other action are we supposed to take with 5*s other than obtain them?

How is a system where some people pull 100 tokens and get 20 5*s, while some people pull 100 tokens and get 2 5*s a fair system? Both players have put in the same amount of time/effort/money, and yet one player gets to progress their roster and one player gets to sit around wondering why they're so unlucky?

Malcrof wrote:

My biggest issue with guarenteed ways to obtain 5*s, is the multitude of threads complaining how they are destroying rosters and the game/pvp etc..( i don't personally agree, but the masses seem to).. so most of these methods seems to almost force a 5* on someone who may not want them.

My idea is simple. Add a check box to the LT page.. all it does is enable/disable the pulling of 5*s from LTs. When enabled, you get a slightly higher % chance of pulling one (say 15%), when disabled, you have a 0 chance, so you can build your 4* roster without risking your scaling.

I like your idea, since it helps out those people that don't want 5*s.

It would still leave the baseline issue, though, which is that some people may just never pull a 5*, or pull very few of them, in this system. There needs to be a way that players can work around that issue and guarantee progress on their 5* roster (even if not everyone chooses to engage in that system, since they don't yet want 5*s).

Dwarfsteel

I wasn't around then, but can anyone remember when they introduced 4*'s? Were they as difficult and rare to obtain as the 5*'s are now? Was there an outcry to make them easier to get? My guess would probably be yes to all those.

While I'm no where near that level of play, and I can sympathize with the frustration experienced by the unlucky token pullers, but the 5*'s are currently the "end game carrot". I suppose they "could" make them easier to get, but then that just means people will progress through the "end game" quicker which means they need to move that carrot even farther. Meaning releasing even more 4* and 5*'s to keep players engaged and working towards something. This means the gap between the median of play and the "end gamers" get's even wider. As it is, many people struggle to keep up with the 2- 4*'s and 1- 5* they plan to release per month. The end target will continue to move no matter what. There can never be a true "end game" or players will lose interest. Then the players will be clamouring for the next thing further diluting the odds and slowing overall progression. The devs need to balance the median of play against the high end and to be sure I can't imagine it's an easy job.

Those opening legendary tokens need to realize that the odds on the legendary tokens are a hell of a lot better than any other token with the exception of the 2* & 3* featured character on event tokens, 1*'s on standard tokens, and 2*'s on every other token. Sure, LT's are far harder to get as they should be, but I really feel the rewards/odds are much better than most things out there now. A 10% chance over 3 characters versus the odds for any other cover group on other tokens is far better. Again, I get that there's much frustration because people want to move up as fast as possible, but keep in mind the big picture.

Easier rewards means more content is needed so that everyone has something to work towards, more content means further diluted %'s, further diluted %'s means a more difficult climb for the other 90% of players, if the gap between everyone becomes too large then they'll lose more players who see no way to "catch up" and therefore spend money. Right now, the ultimate carrot is the 5*'s and they have to keep them rare enough to keep players engaged. As someone else stated, eventually they will become easier to get as the carrot moves farther. Those who have 5 *'s now are getting bonuses as they are ahead of the median and high end of play which is currently 3* and 4* land. I'm sure it doesn't feel like a bonus a lot of the time, but the 5* are meant to be highly rare and difficult to obtain.

In time as more people reach that tier of play they'll become easier to get, there will be more of them, and then there will be (I'm sure) 6* characters and there will be a new round of "Please make them easier to get! This is ridiculous! I've pulled 100 Cosmic Tokens and only got 4 - 6*'s for my effort! I keep getting the same old 5*'s I've had covered for months!". It will forever be the cycle for however long this game lasts.

Raffoon

There seems to be a misconception. I don't want the rate of 5*s to be higher. I want the ability to obtain 5*s to be more certain. The system should not depend so much on luck.

Dwarfsteel

Raffoon wrote:

There seems to be a misconception. I don't want the rate of 5*s to be higher. I want the ability to obtain 5*s to be more certain. The system should not depend so much on luck.

For now it has to be up to luck until the 5 *'s become more common and there are more of them. If there was a guaranteed way (outside of the token odds) to get them it would accelerate the "end game". As guaranteed people would work the game to make sure they got them faster than the next guy. Which means the devs have to accelerate their plans. I don't think there is anyway the devs could reasonably do this with out making them excruciatingly expensive (i.e. 500 CP, 200+ LTs, etc.) that would pace the game the way they want it and that doesn't stretch the gap too much between the tiers of play. Then there would be cries of the game catering to the P2W crowd because the only people who would be reliably pulling that kind of CP/LT's are the whales. In the end the pace would stay the same. At least now, you have the same chances as everyone else. Sure the whales get more chances because of purchases, but their odds are the same as yours. They can have just as much **** luck as you and possibly advance slower than someone who spends less.

If you flatten out the progression curve with guarantees then ultimately you have more people at the end game quicker. Hence the changes to the rewards structures. They want more people into 3*'s and onto 4*'s so that the end game can be progressed without leaving the larger player base behind.

When there is less than 1% (likely far less) of the player population pushing on the end game it doesn't make sense to accelerate that progression. Once the number of people pushing on the end game increases then accelerating it makes sense. They need to push that carrot just enough to keep the ultra-high end players and super-whales engaged while not dis-enfranchising the greater player base. Yes it's frustrating to many players who are in certain points of their progression (such as yourself), but again it's about balancing the game overall.

Raffoon

Dwarfsteel wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

There seems to be a misconception. I don't want the rate of 5*s to be higher. I want the ability to obtain 5*s to be more certain. The system should not depend so much on luck.

For now it has to be up to luck until the 5 *'s become more common and there are more of them. If there was a guaranteed way (outside of the token odds) to get them it would accelerate the "end game". As guaranteed people would work the game to make sure they got them faster than the next guy. Which means the devs have to accelerate their plans. I don't think there is anyway the devs could reasonably do this with out making them excruciatingly expensive (i.e. 500 CP, 200+ LTs, etc.) that would pace the game the way they want it and that doesn't stretch the gap too much between the tiers of play. Then there would be cries of the game catering to the P2W crowd because the only people who would be reliably pulling that kind of CP/LT's are the whales. In the end the pace would stay the same.

I still fail to see how making 5*s obtainable in a more reliable manner would accelerate the end game. Let's go to hypothetical-land to examine:

-Say that in Condition A everyone gets exactly 5 5*s for the exact same amount of effort. Let's even say they're the exact same 5*s.
-Now to compare, let's spread out the distribution of those covers. Let's say that in Condition B some people have 0 5*s and some have 10 5*s. Some people can have other amounts too. That part doesn't really matter.

There are still the same number of 5*s in the system. If anything though, the example with random distribution has accelerated the end game, since you actually have some people with close to fully covered 5*s. The difference here is that you also have some people that got completely boned and can't do anything about it (except perhaps spend thousands of dollars).

The way that we get opportunities at 5*s can be exactly the same, so that no one can game the system. I just want those repeated opportunities to actually guarantee some sort of progress. For example:
-Legendary tokens could give no 5*s, but every time you open one you get a 5* point. Get 10 5* points and you can draw a random 5* token.
-You could trade in a certain number of Legendary Tokens for a guaranteed random 5* cover. It would be some number slightly less than 10 Legendary tokens to account for the 9 4* covers you're giving up.
-Every time you don't draw a 5*, your chance of drawing one could increase. This could come with an on/off switch for those who don't actually want 5*s.

You talk about keeping the gap between tiers of play from getting too wide. When some people get a ton of 5*s and some get just a few 5*s for putting in the same amount of work, that stretches that gap. The worst part of it is that there's nothing the unlucky player can do.

Dwarfsteel wrote:

At least now, you have the same chances as everyone else. Sure the whales get more chances because of purchases, but their odds are the same as yours. They can have just as much **** luck as you and possibly advance slower than someone who spends less.

On average, a whale is going to get more covers than a F2P player either way. Why is it good that players in both groups can get exceedingly unlucky and end up with less 5*s than the equivalent amount of time/money/effort that they've put in?