How I feel about the ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Colognoisseur

Tl;dr The new changes are good for the game and for the great majority of players, not me.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes/ just gonna have to be a different man as the dearly departed David Bowie tells me.

I think the developers at Demiurge have made these recent changes with the majority of the players of MPQ in mind. Unfortunately I think I have fallen through the cracks.

The implementation of Championing means there will be for most players a time where no cover they earn in the game will ever be useless. They will begin to have to make strategic choices about where to spend their Iso and on which characters to champion. For almost everyone this is an added level of strategic thinking. That is really well done and I believe a huge improvement. It hurts in the short term Iso-wise but it definitely realizes the stated goal of extending the long term horizon for the older players.

New covers can only be purchased via Command Points is another which levels the playing field a bit for most of the players. I know you will look around the forum and think that isn’t true but for the large pool of non-forum players they will see this as a huge positive. It is their chance to feel like they are competing for the new characters via play and not money. Certainly the super whales who maxed out the 5*’s will be there but they are a minority of the minority.

The two levels of Legendary Tokens is a break even kind of improvement which is attempting to allow for some kind of catch-up to occur on the 5* side of things. Additionally to help the 4* transitioners. I don’t think this is going to have the desired effect. I think you will see more players use the cheaper tokens to try and bypass the 4* tier altogether. One well-covered and leveled 5* is better than any 4* by a mile. Players will use the cheaper tokens and pray for luck. This can also be damaging in the long term health of the game if the lucky progress and the unlucky decide to leave. This is the least convincing of the changes to being beneficial.

Of course in my personal case the first two changes have completely destroyed the enjoyment I got out of playing MPQ. While the last one is probably the best for me but worst for the majority.
By no longer being able to insta-max a new character and play with him/her things have changed for the worse. Championing just feeds into the 5* lottery for me and although my luck has been average it still feels to me like I am falling behind and I dislike my progression being in the hands of Lady Luck.
Being able to buy more lottery tickets cheaper of course is an improvement because all I have to look forward to at this point in time is to try and keep up in the 5* Arms Race.

For this next season I am going to see what it feels like to be a “different man”. How I feel in a little over three weeks will let me know.

Hayek

Colognoisseur wrote:

The implementation of Championing means there will be for most players a time where no cover they earn in the game will ever be useless.

I don't think this bit is true. I think for the majority of people, most possible dupes are still throwaways. All but 3 2*s, more than half of the 3*s, and all but 5 or 6 4*s I can't champion because it takes so much ISO. The bit where you get to change powers at will is nice though, and long overdue. It adds way more usefulness to some characters.

Anyhow, welcome to the luck only progression game. I myself have anywhere from low 70's to 80 legendaries to open tonight, depending on how many champions I make. I've already been batting way under average for 5*s, but if it happens again tonight, I think that will be it for me. I'll be one of those unlucky players you mentioned who simply decides to leave.

Punisher5784

Give Colognoisseur two more Likes so he can reach the 2000 Rep Club!!

GurlBYE

We've finally reached the point where you don't need to complete tiers to progress to the next anymore.

The issue is more for veteran players with **** luck.

There should still be a more solid way for them to transition.

Do 4 star characters offer 5 star characters where lower tiered characters do?

At least that would grant some 'at last' for people getting screwed repeatedly by legendaries.

puppychow

I think because of the iso shortage, and no real attempt by game devs to address it still (Exhibit A: 20 iso rewards), the fact that you can sell extra covers for at least 100 iso mean that covers will still be useful even if you don't champ your roster. So I'm taking more of a glass half full perspective rather than OP's half empty one.

I think the Champion feature is going bring players back into the game, and that would be helpful in prolonging the life and health of MPQ overall.

As far as the classic/latest LT is concerned, at worst you're exchanging 20 cps for 1,000 iso. Again, that's not a bad deal as far as a worst case scenario goes.

Pylgrim

Punisher5784 wrote:

Give Colognoisseur two more Likes so he can reach the 2000 Rep Club!!

Done. Welcome to the club, Colog

More in topic, I have to agree with him that the third change (5* rotation and "classic LTs") is the one I'm right now most in doubt to be beneficial in the long term. I have been profoundly screwed by luck in this game before, so I cannot help to feel wary. Even if I'm not too unlucky, I know that there will be people who will be and I know how it feels. Less addicted players than me will quit in the spot, in a rage. Knowing that you are putting in the effort , yet other players are advancing and you are stalling, for no other reason than chance is not the kind of feeling people play games to experience.

Buret0

Colognoisseur wrote:

Tl;dr The new changes are good for the game and for the great majority of players, not me.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes/ just gonna have to be a different man as the dearly departed David Bowie tells me.

I think the developers at Demiurge have made these recent changes with the majority of the players of MPQ in mind. Unfortunately I think I have fallen through the cracks.

The implementation of Championing means there will be for most players a time where no cover they earn in the game will ever be useless. They will begin to have to make strategic choices about where to spend their Iso and on which characters to champion. For almost everyone this is an added level of strategic thinking. That is really well done and I believe a huge improvement. It hurts in the short term Iso-wise but it definitely realizes the stated goal of extending the long term horizon for the older players.

New covers can only be purchased via Command Points is another which levels the playing field a bit for most of the players. I know you will look around the forum and think that isn’t true but for the large pool of non-forum players they will see this as a huge positive. It is their chance to feel like they are competing for the new characters via play and not money. Certainly the super whales who maxed out the 5*’s will be there but they are a minority of the minority.

The two levels of Legendary Tokens is a break even kind of improvement which is attempting to allow for some kind of catch-up to occur on the 5* side of things. Additionally to help the 4* transitioners. I don’t think this is going to have the desired effect. I think you will see more players use the cheaper tokens to try and bypass the 4* tier altogether. One well-covered and leveled 5* is better than any 4* by a mile. Players will use the cheaper tokens and pray for luck. This can also be damaging in the long term health of the game if the lucky progress and the unlucky decide to leave. This is the least convincing of the changes to being beneficial.

Of course in my personal case the first two changes have completely destroyed the enjoyment I got out of playing MPQ. While the last one is probably the best for me but worst for the majority.
By no longer being able to insta-max a new character and play with him/her things have changed for the worse. Championing just feeds into the 5* lottery for me and although my luck has been average it still feels to me like I am falling behind and I dislike my progression being in the hands of Lady Luck.
Being able to buy more lottery tickets cheaper of course is an improvement because all I have to look forward to at this point in time is to try and keep up in the 5* Arms Race.

For this next season I am going to see what it feels like to be a “different man”. How I feel in a little over three weeks will let me know.

The "Earned" Legendary Tokens will all be of the 25 CP variety and will only include the three newest 5*s. People buying the 20 CP old packs will eventually be splitting a 10% chance to earn (perhaps) one 5* cover from a list of 5-6 5*s. It is only through CP that you will be able to buy the old packs, and I see LTs being easier to find than 20 command points (as I'm not in a heavy spending alliance).

New higher level covers may only be purchasable from CP, but new release characters are still going to be quickly whaled by people during the launch PvP event where those 40 packs will often lead to 3-5 covers. Generally speaking two 40 packs, a decent showing in the launch PvE, and the PvP cover will pretty much always get you 9-13 covers of the new hotness. Whales are still going to be able to cover their new preciiiious. Super whales will be using the opportunity to not only cover the new hotness, but also champion the new hotness and score some CP for their alliance and champion some 5*s and a few more 4*s in the process. And because whales are going to drop 360K ISO on the new 4* as soon as they get it (mostly from cover sales from the 40 packs... when you have 100% of the characters in the game maxed, it is tough to find a cover you need other than the new character). That means that so long as they don't get 6 covers of the same color, they only need 13 covers (of any variety) to optimally build the newest piece of candy by respeccing.

There's still plenty of useless covers. I'm so ISO poor that I can't get my 10 3*s from level 160 to level 166 and I can't get my 5 level 260s to level 270. To get there, I need to sell covers, which I could have used to champion and get my ISO back if I wasn't so ISO poor. Then, after spending the 500K ISO just to get my high level heroes to max level, I still need to cough up the ISO to champion before those covers are going to be of any use. Even if CS were to let you store and breakdown covers at any point, I still need those covers just to get the ISO to make those covers useful.

PeterGibbons316

The classic LTs is kind of a weird one. Very few people should be buying the Latest variety. As nice as I'm sure the new Black Spidey will be, he isn't going to be better than a SS/OML/Phoenix with 3+ covers. And the real benefit from 5* characters (IMO being able to sit unshielded with 1k or 1.3k+ points) isn't realized until they have closer to 8 or 9 covers. So it makes the most sense for people to keep maximizing their chances at the characters they already have until they become pretty well developed, and usable in PvP.

Buret0

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

The classic LTs is kind of a weird one. Very few people should be buying the Latest variety. As nice as I'm sure the new Black Spidey will be, he isn't going to be better than a SS/OML/Phoenix with 3+ covers. And the real benefit from 5* characters (IMO being able to sit unshielded with 1k or 1.3k+ points) isn't realized until they have closer to 8 or 9 covers.

Yeah, the only reason you are going to ever take the new packs is when you are forced into it (or maybe once the old packs have a 2% chance to draw SS, OML, Pho, BSS, and HtD, while the new packs still have a 3.3% chance to draw the three newest 5*s, all of whom are better than HtD, SS, and BSS.)

By forced into it, I mean the tokens you get from 4* DDQ, as rewards, from the vaults, and from buying 40 packs. You can't choose to spend those on the classic tokens, which really limits your ability to champion the old 5*s. Better whale now while the whaling is good!

PeterGibbons316

Buret0 wrote:

The "Earned" Legendary Tokens will all be of the 25 CP variety and will only include the three newest 5*s.

Wish I had known that before now, would have gone ahead and opened all mine. Have OML and SS both with 4 covers, and no other 5*s.

Buret0

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

The "Earned" Legendary Tokens will all be of the 25 CP variety and will only include the three newest 5*s.

Wish I had known that before now, would have gone ahead and opened all mine. Have OML and SS both with 4 covers, and no other 5*s.

Well, the new packs aren't available yet (are they?)

I just checked my phone and I'm still just seeing the single pack. Was BSS already released and I'm just missing the R92 update?

PeterGibbons316

Buret0 wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

The "Earned" Legendary Tokens will all be of the 25 CP variety and will only include the three newest 5*s.

Wish I had known that before now, would have gone ahead and opened all mine. Have OML and SS both with 4 covers, and no other 5*s.

Well, the new packs aren't available yet (are they?)

I just checked my phone and I'm still just seeing the single pack. Was BSS already released and I'm just missing the R92 update?

Yeah, I checked as soon as I read your post and could only redeem the newer packs.

jigawatt

Colognoisseur wrote:

I think the developers at Demiurge have made these recent changes with the majority of the players of MPQ in mind. Unfortunately I think I have fallen through the cracks.

Of course in my personal case the first two changes have completely destroyed the enjoyment I got out of playing MPQ. By no longer being able to insta-max a new character and play with him/her things have changed for the worse.

Man you not in the minority you're in the minority of forumites I guess but they just cast off a noticeable amount of people like you and me. I guess that $50 every few weeks is useless to them. They could have extract more money from my wallet than any game has in a LONG time but oh well time to move on and spend a tenth of the amount of time I used to spend on this. Forever stuck in 2/3* land, with no hope of coming out until a year from now (yeah right they really assume all their players are 3-year players they either need a clue or fix there user data mining)

Buret0

And my game just did a server update and I have the 25 and 20 packs on the screen with the BSS 5* welcome message.

And with the 20 CPs? In the immortal words of Charlie Brown on Halloween: "I got a Brock."

VA5

One other major change was the large availability of L tokens to level three players. I've noticed in my alliance many players were maxing out 3's in favor of the more tedious process of 4's. The new changes gave these players a massive L Token influx which hopefully will encourage them to dev some of their 4's.
I do occasionally look at other players rosters and they make no sense. I saw a player today who had 5 or 6 covers on two 5's, 3 maxed 4's and then mostly 2's. This makes no sense with the way the game progresses. Either cheating or buying LOTS of 40 packs and selling everything off except the 5's.

In the end as I once posted 5's will need to be a progression reward (and a difficult one at that). I think a 5 should be given as a seasonal award at 12,500 and as the reward for clearing all stages go the gauntlet.

Otherwise I do think the changes have injected some well needed vitality into the game.

DaveR4470

aesthetocyst wrote:

Guess that makes him NATO ... and I'm the Warsaw Pact. Dang.

The current 5 Year Commenting Plan is on schedule, comrade! The Colognoisseurialist dogs will break before the might of global aesthtocystialism! MPQers, throw off your chains!

rkd80

Thanks for the insightful post Colog! I agree with everything you said and it certainly felt at the time that the vast majority were going to benefit at the expense of the few - it seemed strange to me they would implement something so unfriendly to the whales, unless of course we misunderstood how whales actually play. Perhaps the idea that buying covers was incorrect and perhaps the major revenue stream actually came from 40 packs. In which case everything that has been done will further drive the lottery.

As far as the 20 cp classic packs, I see zero redeeming quality here. The idea that I can no longer get surfer covers unless I spend extremely difficult to gather CPs is hardly a positive change. It sucks frankly. I would be far more receptive if the classic packs also rotated out 4* and increased everyone's %. So remove half the draws and put surfer at 10%, that way there would actually be some strategy - otherwise this is a rather unfriendly change.