Champions, the Solution to the Veteran Blues

Dauthi

I'm a long time MPQ fan, and the game has had it's ups and downs. After I had been playing over a year, I looked at newer players, and wondered what advantage I had over them, and realized it was a complete 3* roster. While DDQ (and more 3* prizes) was a great thing, it completely demolished this advantage. A 3* roster went from rare, to uncommon, to common.

Now what was I left with? I had a few 4*s because I had played the game for so long (XForce, Invisible Woman, Nick, Elektra, etc), however with the release of better 4*s (and 3* buffing) they became useless. New/casual players with better luck might obtain these stronger 4*s first, while I am busy getting dupes of my old 4*s. This made competing for 4*s in PVE against new players all the more frustrating.

At this point I thought once again, what am I left with now? The only thing I could see is ISO, the lifeblood of the game, especially since buying ISO has always been extremely expensive. ISO basically equates to time spent in game. The problem was it didn't provide a huge advantage. For example, a 140 compared to 166 didn't provide a significant difference in power. I felt like I should have some kind of advantage for playing the game since it's release. After an onslaught of bad luck with token pulls where I kept teetering at pulling 4*s I needed 20% of the time, I considered quitting. Around this time D3 announced a new system where my old characters would have some use again, so like many I decided to wait to see how that went.

As it turned out, Champions reward those who maxed their characters, like myself. It turned a moderate advantage of having earned ISO for years, into a huge one. In one day I got 40+ legendaries from championing. It didn't stop there though. I am now earning more ISO, HP, CP and legendaries than ever before due to my past work. I am excited to play again, as 3*s all suddenly have value and they are so easy to get (progression!). I'm not as worried about 4* pulls because my Iron Fist or Cyclops will eventually pick up the slack.

From what I can see this was an idea that legitimately held out an olive branch to the veteran players. Anyone out there in my position feel the same?

thesamuraipig

I agree. That was the only advantage I've had as well...especially being a casual player. Maxed threes and getting crushed by newer 4's. I finally feel like I am making headway and that first round of legendary tokens has really strengthened that tier for me. I'm ISO hungry...but there are worse things.

Well said all round Dauthi. And actually good to hear someone say that the devs did something right for once.

vinnygecko

I've been playing 2+ years, and I have to say that champions feature has been the best new feature added to the game in my opinion, other than maybe DDQ. While I didn't have 40 3*s ready to go from day 1 of Champions, I have championed 16 so far which means 16 LTs in 2 weeks, something that would normally take me months.

It's also made me more excited to play the game, and most token pulls now have a better chance of actually being useful. I can't remember the last time I was happy to get OBW covers

I'm still far away from putting out any 4*s in PVP, but I'm much closer now and don't feel as dismayed with my previous bad luck on tokens. While I didn't have much ISO stored up, it's still pretty easy to get enough in one day to Champion a 3*. I've got 8 more 3* to champion once I get their tokens, and then I can prioritize the rest to building up my 4*s (and eventually maxing/championing the rest of the 3*s).

Linkster79

I couldn't agree more, the champions feature sure has given stale old characters a purpose once again.

Unknown

Except ISO............. so parched for ISO.

I guess mission accomplished to a degree for the devs. By reducing the available ISO overall (since people are putting their covers towards levelling instead of converting to ISO) the game play is now slowed down to the pace of available ISO.

thanos8587

well said. i had all 40 at 166 (not knowing about champing) and ive champed 32 so far. knowing that level 183 for each of them is also going to throw out alot of 4* covers really has me more interested in the game knowing every day is going to bring ddq and more champing and more progression. i feel like ill be able to start harvesting more leg tokens from 4* ddq and eventually with luck start fielding 6-7 cover 5*s, which are the future of the game.

the initial iso investment has been huge (roughly 300K so far with 2*s included and i need 60k more to finish) but after that it really feels like that will leverage fairly quickly into a decent amount of cp, hp, covers, etc.

tanis3303

I'm holding my judgement until we learn what is and is not a bug with this whole reduced ability damage debacle. As of right now, while championing is a cool feature and has made almost every token pull meaningful again, it has also hit my ENTIRE roster with a huge nerf bat. If that ends up being a bug/mistake/whatever, I'll heap praise upon the feature. But as of now, it's a sugar coating to cover up the fact that they nerfed pretty much the entire game...you know, except the 5*s.

wirius

Its a really great system. Glad you're happy Dauthi!

SnowcaTT

Champion-ing day was a great day, and caught me way back up in covering the 4*'s, which was going very slowly before. And now I'm only 2x as far below the 5* curve RNG-wise as I should be! Overall, the feature has been very interesting and nice.

I do have concerns that others have voiced here: are the 3*'s basically weaker now forever? Where the heck is the ISO to level all of these characters?

Also, while glad no covers are "worthless" anymore, I wonder about the whale factor. Those buying lots of 40-packs will have these at a super high level very soon, how will that effect any sort of player balance? The 5*'s probably already eliminated any worry about trying to keep up with whales anyway...so one less thing to worry about?

madok

I'm loving the new feature. It has turned so many experiences that used to be negative into positive ones. Life in MPQ still isn't perfect but it is a step in the right direction.

Now I just need to figure out where the heck I left that 1.6 million I put away for a rainy day.

mpqr7

I like it. In the past, I was barely able to earn enough HP for shields and roster slots. But now that champing is here, it's much easier for me to stay ahead with HP.

And yes, I could have stayed ahead if I was hitting top 50 in pve, but that's way too much work to bother. I dabble in pve a little bit but not much, as it's a lot of work for very little reward.

Malcrof

Feels so odd to be extremely excited for psylocke boost week, she is lvl 180 now.. this is going to rock!

I am loving that i can use so many covers i would have sold now..

OBW almost done though... and still so iso starved it's not funny. 17 more 3*s to max .. but.. bring it on!

SnowcaTT

Certainly it makes me max characters I hadn't planned on. After they started releasing 4*'s quickly (and I had the 20ish "good" 3*'s maxed) I figured I was done with 3*'s. I left the rest at level 140 (60K Iso from 166).

The day champions released I maxed GSBW (didn't have PX properly covered at the time), She-Hulk (had tons of covers), Ragnarock (had tons of covers, used in LR's). Since then I've maxed DD (LR's, PVP event), Bullseye (had a couple covers), Spiderman (had a couple covers). Before I hit 1400 in SSim, I'll max Iron Man (LR's...see a theme here?) and perhaps Punisher (guess why?).

I'm down to the lowest tier (IMO, others may argue) to max: Doc Oc, Psylocke, Colossus, Beast, QS, Sentry, Storm, Squirrel, Vision. Eleven non-maxed 3*'s, planning to take that list down to nine by end of season - I didn't anything would make me pay attention to this rarity tier again.

It was always a bummer tossing covers, and it's fun "using" them again. I sill don't think the 3*'s will ever be overly useful again - PVE scaling makes their level pretty irrelevant, how high do they have to be before they matter a bunch as PVP essential?, by the time you get +100 covers you'll have 6-7 of one 5* and that's all you need....

Linkster79

SnowcaTT wrote:

I do have concerns that others have voiced here: are the 3*'s basically weaker now forever?

David Hi-Fi Moore is looking at getting more information regarding this issue. No, really he is.

Unknown

It's nice to have a reason to level some of the 3*s I don't use much, and accidently finding new uses for them! Im40, as bad as he is AP wise, with OML tanking yellow and red, he gets charged up in a hurry!

Cousin Simpson

You know what's really genius is that the devs now are able to make us excited about selling a cover for basically the usual ISO price by adding a sparkly animation and adding a leveling component to it.

Stax the Foyer

Yeah, I love championing. Making those 10-packs interesting again was a good move, and the respec feature is a huge benefit (for some characters more than others) that's well worth the unlocking price.