5*, maybe the problem is 4*

simonsez

cyineedsn wrote:

Good question, how many champ levels do we need before 4*s start being competitive with 5*s?

More than most of us will ever get, I'm afraid. The folks who will have uber-4*s are gonna be the same ones who have maxed 5*s.

Linkster79

cyineedsn wrote:

simonsez wrote:

wirius wrote:

The developers had stated that they would increase 4* power once 5*'s began to hit a certain distribution level. Maybe that level has arrived.

... and you don't think championing is what they were talking about?

Good question, how many champ levels do we need before 4*s start being competitive with 5*s?

It doesn't matter. While most of us are scrabbling around for 4* covers the mega spenders and those who the random number generator favours are championing their 5* characters. I took on a team in the recent Army Of One versus event that had a maximum championed Punisher, a championed OML and a high champion level Silver Surfer for fun and the match damage alone made sure the match was a quick one.

TheOncomingStorm

aesthetocyst wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

A 550 5* laughs at a 370 4*. So they gave us the carrot to catch up to 5* progression if you fall behind the luck curve, but then they ate the carrot and left us chasing the end of a fishing line.

No argument there, Grumpy. I posted the graph below in the "crescendo" of my match damage thread ... and this is only concerning match damage. A similar plot of ability damage would be outright pornographic

We need to send them another math activities book.

wirius

simonsez wrote:

wirius wrote:

The developers had stated that they would increase 4* power once 5*'s began to hit a certain distribution level. Maybe that level has arrived.

... and you don't think championing is what they were talking about?

I don't think so Simonsez. If their intent was to bring 4*'s up to more competitive power levels, I would think they would put a much lower cap on 5* champion levels. Here's hoping anyway.

simonsez

wirius wrote:

I don't think so Simonsez. If their intent was to bring 4*'s up to more competitive power levels, I would think they would put a much lower cap on 5* champion levels. Here's hoping anyway.

I would've hoped so too, but I've been around this rodeo long enough to suspect otherwise.

kalex716

wirius wrote:

simonsez wrote:

wirius wrote:

I've seen the issue plenty of times these last few weeks, "5*'s end game progression bad, so long, losing hope, etc." I've been scratching my head at this because I viewed 5*'s as an elusive korean grind that would take 400-500 LT's to get. So why so much emphasis on it?

Because if I'm trying to find a target in PvP, there are plenty of times when my options are a 5* team that will kick my ****, or a 30 pt target that'll cost me net points when they retaliate.

And this isn't the first time someone has mischaracterized people's 5* complaints. For the most part, people aren't complaining it takes too long. The problem is that it's grossly imbalanced as a function of luck. I couldn't care less if the 5* progress rate was a cover a month, so long as that rate applied to everyone. I'm in no hurry. What frustrates people is when they're no longer able to compete on an even level, despite their best efforts, through no fault of their own.

The developers had stated that they would increase 4* power once 5*'s began to hit a certain distribution level. Maybe that level has arrived.

This doesn't help people who haven't come close to covering 2 of the required Jeangrey/Hulkbuster/Iceman/Cyclops/RHulk though. We already have to boost to beat these teams between shield hops to snag 1k now, if you creep 4 star power up it gets far more complicated.

3 stars transitioners would be walled by 4 star and 5 star teams. Remember, now that u can't buy out 4 stars anymore with a couple hundred bucks, transitioners are playing WAYYYYY behind.

Unknown

I look at the OP and see something a little different than most of the posts here. I see (and agree with) no reason to improve more than a couple of 4*s because of game modes, not because of balance.

Imagine a world where they get to 40 4*s and perfectly balance them all. Why would anyone max any more than 2 of them?

For 3*s, they are forced on you in each PvP so there is reason to improve them. They are also essentials in PvE and DDQ, but those modes don't require any particular power because you can get buy with a limp body + 2 good toons.

For 4*s, there is only PvE essentials (no power required) and DDQ (some minimum threshold, at least). That's it. Other than alleviating the inherent boredom of using the same team over and over again, there's no reason to do anything other than pick your 2 favorite and max them while neglecting all others. Once you have them maxed, maxing the others adds exactly nothing (other than boredom mitigation). This is true even if the 4* tier were all perfectly balanced.

There's just no interesting reason to improve more than 2 4* characters, due to lack of gameplay incentives. Cost, scarcity, randomness, etc. are all problems, but imo not the core problem. The core problem is: no reason to improve multiple 4*s.

kalex716

Personally, I feel like I missed the boat already. It left without me.

I missed out on being able to break into the 4 star scene with cash before the 2500 gold per cover change at 4 star. The money I dropped at xmas was wasted. A dagger to the heart.

...And my pull rates at 5 star are dismal. Far below average. I think I scored starlord levels of **** on that one calculator that was going around. So i missed out on the best odds of stealing a usable OML before the ever-bloating-pool saturates it into futility.

I'm just playing deadpool dailies now, and waiting for a pvp with jeangrey/hulkbuster in it at 1k. Otherwise this game offers me nothing. I'm starting to play a few other mobile games, and I'm at risk of finding something else to occupy my time and brainspace with.

PeterGibbons316

Sundance2112 wrote:

There's just no interesting reason to improve more than 2 4* characters, due to lack of gameplay incentives. Cost, scarcity, randomness, etc. are all problems, but imo not the core problem. The core problem is: no reason to improve multiple 4*s.

Honestly I think removing the ability to purchase 4* covers might have been meant to address this problem. If you don't already have a max covered Jean Buster, it's going to be a lot harder to get it in the future.

I spent the last several months getting more of my 4*s to PvE usable levels thanks to DDQ4, and am slowly increasing them from there. Honestly, it has really changed PvE for me, and I'm having a lot more fun finding new 4* combinations that allow me to continuously play without burning through health packs.

Additionally, I'm realizing the futility of trying to get a usable 5* roster and so I'm hoarding LTs until I have more of the better 4* characters maxed. My end game is more likely to come in the form of higher level 4* champions than usable 5* characters, and so there is some value for me in having more than just the 2 top tier 4*s on my roster.

cyineedsn

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Honestly I think removing the ability to purchase 4* covers might have been meant to address this problem. If you don't already have a max covered Jean Buster, it's going to be a lot harder to get it in the future.

I agree with this. I also think if they were serious about stopping/slowing that down they should've done it...oh. maybe 6-7 months ago before tons of people whaled out the top-tier 4*s.

I feel bad for anyone just starting the 3*->4* transition, climbing to 1k in pvp must be a nightmare that's going to last...a long time depending on their rng with ltoken pulls.

Warbringa

cyineedsn wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Honestly I think removing the ability to purchase 4* covers might have been meant to address this problem. If you don't already have a max covered Jean Buster, it's going to be a lot harder to get it in the future.

I agree with this. I also think if they were serious about stopping/slowing that down they should've done it...oh. maybe 6-7 months ago before tons of people whaled out the top-tier 4*s.

I feel bad for anyone just starting the 3*->4* transition, climbing to 1k in pvp must be a nightmare that's going to last...a long time depending on their rng with ltoken pulls.

I am in this boat unfortunately. I bought my first stark salary right before finding out they were getting rid of HP cover buys and I bought a number of Hulkbuster covers (leaving some HP for future slots) as I was missing many 4* characters. I use to play PvP but within the last six months I stopped due to the difficulty of facing so many high 4* teams. It was no longer any fun. Too many times I would get close to 1k rewards and get knocked down even with shield hopping. Now I play almost completely PvE and only play PvP to pick up for 2* token and 300 pt token and gather some quick iso from time to time. Championing has helped me get an influx of new 4* characters, which will help me in PvE but after that I know my transition will probably slow to a grind.

mpqr7

For me, it was a very slow transition.. I hit 400 for about a year, then finally made it to 600 months later, then finally battled my way to 800, then rarely made it to 1000, then at around 500 days was one of the lucky ones who won enough OMLs to make it to 1300+ (now in the 1500 to 1700 range; I could probably do more but don't feel like spending more HP on shields). If I hadn't been lucky with rngesus, I probably would've fallen back from barely 1000 down to barely 800, been kicked out of my alliance and forced to downgrade to a worse alliance. Then slowly rise back up to having better 4*s and so forth.

Buret0

wirius wrote:

That seems in line with what I'm getting at. There's no real reason to have a lot of 4*'s. Having lots of strong 3*'s is good because of the way the game's pvp works. But what real advantage or game use do you get out of more than 2 main top tier 4*'s? Would you be more excited if they had the a 4* focussed pvp along side the 3* focussed one? What if more of the 4*'s were balanced better, or not as far away from 5* power?

The lack of a 4* PvP is important. Having all of the PvPs be 3* based today is like if 6 months ago all of the PvPs used 2* required characters.

The problem is that the game is now (and will continue to get) a bigger gap between the top and the bottom players.

There's players in the first three stages of transition who have between 100% an 50% loaner use in PvP. Players who don't have every 3* and players who don't have any or many 3*s over level 100.

Those players are seeing the same events and the same rewards as players who are in the last three stages of the game's transition. Players who have every 3* over level 120, and players who have anywhere from all to some of the 4*s maxed, while some few have every 3 and 4* maxed and are starting to max out or champion their 5*s.

The game continues to focus on 3*s (DPD, RC in Season PvPs, RC in LR PvPs, RC in 1/3 of the RC nodes in PvE), despite the fact that the game has started to leave them behind (I'm looking at you R91).

So what is the answer? You can't divide the people up into tiers without killing rewards and reducing the number of endtimes (we don't need 5 slices per tier per event... or do we?). But really, we have 1/3rd of the characters in our party living in 3* realm... that doesn't put us all on equal footing and it doesn't mean that we are all playing the same game for the same rewards.

Dauthi

aesthetocyst wrote:

Maxchamping a 4* takes acquiring 13 4* covers, which is much easier than getting multiple 5*s, sure, but still often requires months (or great luck), and then you must add 1 month's hard play worth of iso ... and up to 100 more 4* covers....which will take a typical player years...just to get that 4* up to the subbasement of 5* land.

and the 4* can't be Invisible Woman, Elektra, Starlord, XForce, Nick, Mr F, TaHulk etc. If you are unfortunate enough that one of these guys is your first/second/third 4* you finish, then you have to keep pulling in search of a better 4*, all while pulling dupes of these guys of course.

Unknown

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Honestly I think removing the ability to purchase 4* covers might have been meant to address this problem. If you don't already have a max covered Jean Buster, it's going to be a lot harder to get it in the future.

Unfortunately, it "addressed" the problem by making it harder to get any maxed 4*s, rather than giving players any reason to have more than a couple of them maxed.

Yes, it's harder and more frustrating. I suppose it's cool that by the time I cover-max a 4*, I'll probably have enough ISO to level him. And although I respect players' interest in having diversity, the game itself doesn't seem to encourage it. So we're still left with a system such that players (slowwwwwly) get a couple of good 4*s, and then start looking to 5*s for progress and get upset about the luck factor.

So far, I haven't been too upset about the practically impossible 4* transition because I've been filling out my 3* roster and enjoying their improvements. I don't get any such joy or interest in drawing even a mid-tier 4* from an LT because there's almost no reason to improve it anyway. As long as I have at least 1 cover rostered for essentials, I'm then stuck waiting for luck to give me either 5*s or one of the top maybe 4-5 4*s. All the rest just won't impact my gameplay.

Quebbster

kalex716 wrote:

I'm just playing deadpool dailies now, and waiting for a pvp with jeangrey/hulkbuster in it at 1k.

Both should be coming sometime next week I think. They go in alphabetical order, so you just need to go through Iceman and Invisible Woman first...
I was a bit surprised TAHulk gets slotted in at H rather than T though...

Unknown

I'm not even sure how to quantify my thoughts in a post, but I guess my "vibe" got to the point where 5*s blew my game up, despite being utterly useless, and I still didn't have a covered 4* after 2+ years, and honestly? I stopped caring.

I've accepted that I likely won't cover a 4*, because I already have a full-time job and I've never enjoyed gambling, especially when the money is so high and the rewards are so awkwardly low, so yeah. It's probably not going to happen, and I don't even care anymore.

The 5*s have essentially given me license to let go, and I'm grateful. I mess about with PvE, mainly the Trivial nodes, which is all my team can handle (scaling + ISO shortage = ****-o-rama), I get my T300, some tokens, maybe get lucky, and move on.

Essentially, scaling, the overuse of gambling mechanics, and the constant lack of feeling progress has ultimately turned MPQ into a game for me, and again, I guess I'm grateful.

tl;dr? I guess I agree with the OP, but I would argue that the 5*s actually highlighted a much, much larger systematic problem, far above and beyond that of a single tier of heroes...

DBC

jobob

The 5* tier to me is odd, because in most of the games I am used to playing (and I'm talking both single-player and MMO), the "power" increase from level to level doesn't take off exponentially, rather it plays by the rules of diminishing returns.

The latest/greatest or hardest to get endgame stuff is usually for the min/maxers... maybe it gives a 10% boost over the "regular" end-game loot... but it's not like you typically are wearing all blue armor & weapons and you find a purple and it DOUBLES or TRIPLES all of your health and damage.

it is even more strange because the 4* tier is essentially structured this way. A max level 4* team isn't THAT much better than the best max level 3* team. Going from 3* to 4*, you get about a 40% boost in AOE damage, double the single-target damage, and about 60% more health.

...But moving into 5* territory from 4*... AOE damage more than triples, Single target damage triples, and max health more than doubles. These are rough estimates taken from a few good characters from each level... but still, that seems a little crazy to me.

mouser

I suppose d3 could always do a rebalance/nerf of 5*'s and let people sell their 5*'s off for an increased price lol.

Wonder how many would sell those covers even if that happened.