The slow death of the 3*-4* transition

TxMoose

I actually do the same slice for the M and W events (mainly for pts availability) but a different one for the weekend one (mainly for schedule).

wymtime

kalex716 wrote:

One thing to avoid, if you are not already doing this, don't put ANY iso into character until they are at a cover level where you will actually use them as one of your primary characters.

This seems like bad advice. If you have enough covers to complete the weekly DP for that character, you have to match it with an iso expenditure of some sort in order to ensure you can get the cover. Spending 0 Iso in this circumstance, will costs you an LT.

I think there is a happy medium to what you are saying. You want to put the minimal into a undercover rd 4* to win the DPDQ and save the rest for max covered 4*. I have won DPDQ with a level 125 4*. I even stop leveling lower tier 4* at 125-150 because I want o compete in the DPDQ but will only only take really strong 4* to 270. I originally started taking my 4* to 190-200 and realized this was a mistake. Right now the ISO cost to get to 200 is too much to just use for DPDQ or PVE when buffed. 125-150 is a good holding place for DPDQ and does not cost the much ISO from level 70.

The issue is if you are doing this every week it is going to be a rough transition to level 270. If you have to do this each week but you have a top tier 4* or 2 with 13 covers you are better off sacrificing a couple of DPDQ LT to level your 4*. Making it easier to hit 1000 now will increase the flow of 4* onto your roster way more then DPDQ. DPDQ for 4* is one to two a week. 1000 in PVP is 3 per week and that is why a high level 4* will help with the transition more than taken one character to 150 every week to do DPDQ

kalex716

wymtime wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

One thing to avoid, if you are not already doing this, don't put ANY iso into character until they are at a cover level where you will actually use them as one of your primary characters.

This seems like bad advice. If you have enough covers to complete the weekly DP for that character, you have to match it with an iso expenditure of some sort in order to ensure you can get the cover. Spending 0 Iso in this circumstance, will costs you an LT.

I think there is a happy medium to what you are saying. You want to put the minimal into a undercover rd 4* to win the DPDQ and save the rest for max covered 4*. I have won DPDQ with a level 125 4*. I even stop leveling lower tier 4* at 125-150 because I want o compete in the DPDQ but will only only take really strong 4* to 270. I originally started taking my 4* to 190-200 and realized this was a mistake. Right now the ISO cost to get to 200 is too much to just use for DPDQ or PVE when buffed. 125-150 is a good holding place for DPDQ and does not cost the much ISO from level 70.

The issue is if you are doing this every week it is going to be a rough transition to level 270. If you have to do this each week but you have a top tier 4* or 2 with 13 covers you are better off sacrificing a couple of DPDQ LT to level your 4*. Making it easier to hit 1000 now will increase the flow of 4* onto your roster way more then DPDQ. DPDQ for 4* is one to two a week. 1000 in PVP is 3 per week and that is why a high level 4* will help with the transition more than taken one character to 150 every week to do DPDQ

Agreed. Thanks for clarifying your position. Assuming you have enough covers, leveling a 4 star to 110/120ish is usually enough to win the DPDQ, and not entirely too costly.

I also agree, that if you can get a top tier 4 star close to cover capped, you need to plan on readjusting on the fly and be prepared to put all ISO into as soon as it happens, in order to make sure you don't bungle your chance to champ him/her as well should RNG favor you soon after cap.

elusive

This isn't entirely related, but how do people without 4 stars manage to remain higher up in PvE? I grinded almost all of them down to nothing and I was still ~230 in the first part of the latest event; I know it's mostly because it's a new 4 star, but some of the nodes get so tough that I'm lucky to not have to use 3 health packs every time I try. What makes me feel even worse is that I'm not only missing out on the reward for this, I'm going to be **** for the next PvE since Quake's going to be a required node. Ugh.

wymtime

elusive wrote:

This isn't entirely related, but how do people without 4 stars manage to remain higher up in PvE? I grinded almost all of them down to nothing and I was still ~230 in the first part of the latest event; I know it's mostly because it's a new 4 star, but some of the nodes get so tough that I'm lucky to not have to use 3 health packs every time I try. What makes me feel even worse is that I'm not only missing out on the reward for this, I'm going to be **** for the next PvE since Quake's going to be a required node. Ugh.

A lot of it has to do when you start. If you start right away and do 1 clear every 8 hours then for he last 1-1 1/2 hours you should be able to get top 20-50. If you join a bracket late you might get into a bracket where everyone has already done 1 full clear and is really far ahead. You have to play efficiently in PVE and grind at the end, and start each sub event right away as well. I am in the running for top 20 and for sub 1 I didn't grind any nodes down to 1 I just played efficiently.

Vhailorx

elusive wrote:

This isn't entirely related, but how do people without 4 stars manage to remain higher up in PvE? I grinded almost all of them down to nothing and I was still ~230 in the first part of the latest event; I know it's mostly because it's a new 4 star, but some of the nodes get so tough that I'm lucky to not have to use 3 health packs every time I try. What makes me feel even worse is that I'm not only missing out on the reward for this, I'm going to be **** for the next PvE since Quake's going to be a required node. Ugh.

In addition to the above post, pve difficulty scales to roster strength, so theoretically evryone faces an equally difficult challenge (though champ 4* and 5* seem to break the current difficulty curve). So pve is basically a challenge of speed and sustainability. For regular 8-hour grinding, it's important to pick team that don't use many healthpacks, so true healers and defensive characters like cage are very useful. So are winfinite teams that can reliably kill very hard nodes.

For end of sub grinds, speed is important (to get as many clears as possible as close to the end of the sub as possible). So characters like iron fist that can deal lots of damage very quickly are more important.

(incidentally, looking at those factors, it's obvious why OML is a pve beast: he tanks his colors and heals damage for regular cclears, and he does huge match damage and passively makes strike tiles to put out damage quickly at the end of subs)

Another key limitation for pve grinding is healthpacks. But a good solution is to stockpile tacos and then pop open a few whenever you need healthpacks. I don't think I have ever opened more than 5-8 tacos without getting at least 5 healthpacks.

elusive

I appreciate the advice, but literally every single person in the top ten in my bracket has a roster with multiple 5 stars and a lot of fully maxed out 4 stars, as well. I'm not kidding, every single one is like that, and they have many more points than me. I usually try to play every node at once every eight hours (though this time, I did go without playing for almost twelve hours thanks to an appointment) and then grind most of them down to 1 point in the last hour of the event (didn't have enough medkits to do more than half of them this time), and yet the top guys all easily have over double my points. Is my method flawed? I always assumed that's what people meant when they say do a pass every eight hours. Do I need to grind more often to keep up with these guys?

atomzed

elusive wrote:

usually try to play every node at once every eight hours (though this time, I did go without playing for almost twelve hours thanks to an appointment) and then grind most of them down to 1 point in the last hour of the event (didn't have enough medkits to do more than half of them this time)

The method you described is correct. At start of each sub, immediately do a clear. Repeat one clear every 8 hours. At the end of the sub, grind the nodes down to a single point.

elusive wrote:

and yet the top guys all easily have over double my points.

If you say that you did not clear half of the nodes(down to 1), then it is possible they have half as many points as you.

Another possibility is that you enter the sub late, and they already have one full grind more than you.

grunzadin

elusive wrote:

I appreciate the advice, but literally every single person in the top ten in my bracket has a roster with multiple 5 stars and a lot of fully maxed out 4 stars, as well. I'm not kidding, every single one is like that, and they have many more points than me.

If I'm understanding your point correctly, you're implying that the top ten in your bracket achieved their scores because their rosters are stacked with superior characters.

While roster strength will impact your placement in PVE, I think you've highlighted a chicken or egg scenario -- how did the top ten get their mega rosters in the first place? Some bought them, sure, but very likely many of those top ten are just the most serious grinders in the events they play. Their rosters now reflect a history of placing well.

My guess is that if you had an event where everyone had to use the same set of identical characters, those top ten would still place very highly.

Anecdotally, I've placed first in PVE events within the last three months without having anything better than 3*s. I remember one of those events was for Jean Grey covers, so I assume that the competition was suitably robust.

Unknown

grunzadin wrote:

elusive wrote:

Anecdotally, I've placed first in PVE events within the last three months without having anything better than 3*s.

I'd chalk that up to an anomaly or a lucky slice. I haven't seen a rank 1 PvE finish in the past 3 months that didn't have a very usable OML.

There's really no competing with them either, they start grinding in the last hour and wipe every node. It takes me around 2 hours if I'm lucky with lots of casualties.

OzarkBoatswain

Just my experience here.

Before champions, I had 32 3*s at 166. I had 4* Wolverine at 270 and none of my other 4*s had enough covers to be useful. I felt stuck at the 3* level.

When Champions came in, I champed all of them for legendary tokens. Suddenly I had Carnage at 3/2/5 but none of the other 4*s gained enough to be useful. With Command Points, I get 2 CP every day, enough for a legendary token every 10 days. I've also found that the progression rewards in PVE are easy enough that I can always get the final reward for at least one more 4* cover. (I don't do PVP seriously enough for the big rewards.)

Now I have Iceman at 5/4/4 and some other characters that are worthwhile when boosted, like IMHB at 4/3/3. (I have IW championed. She's bad. Don't do this.) I also have OML at 2/1/1 and Phoenix at 1/2/4 which are my bread & butter. So yes, the changes were enough for me to transition to at least 4* land if not 5* Valhalla.

Pylgrim

elusive wrote:

I appreciate the advice, but literally every single person in the top ten in my bracket has a roster with multiple 5 stars and a lot of fully maxed out 4 stars, as well. I'm not kidding, every single one is like that, and they have many more points than me. I usually try to play every node at once every eight hours (though this time, I did go without playing for almost twelve hours thanks to an appointment) and then grind most of them down to 1 point in the last hour of the event (didn't have enough medkits to do more than half of them this time), and yet the top guys all easily have over double my points. Is my method flawed? I always assumed that's what people meant when they say do a pass every eight hours. Do I need to grind more often to keep up with these guys?

If you are playing correctly, and you see people with twice as many points than you, those people are playing incorrectly. At the end-of-sub grind, the people who played correctly will pull ahead while the others won't increase their scores much. However, I'm curious, can you really grind your nodes to 1 in 1 hour with a 3* roster? In my experience, 2 hours is barely enough.

Ozark Boatswain wrote:

Just my experience here.

Before champions, I had 32 3*s at 166. I had 4* Wolverine at 270 and none of my other 4*s had enough covers to be useful. I felt stuck at the 3* level.

When Champions came in, I champed all of them for legendary tokens. Suddenly I had Carnage at 3/2/5 but none of the other 4*s gained enough to be useful. With Command Points, I get 2 CP every day, enough for a legendary token every 10 days. I've also found that the progression rewards in PVE are easy enough that I can always get the final reward for at least one more 4* cover. (I don't do PVP seriously enough for the big rewards.)

Now I have Iceman at 5/4/4 and some other characters that are worthwhile when boosted, like IMHB at 4/3/3. (I have IW championed. She's bad. Don't do this.) I also have OML at 2/1/1 and Phoenix at 1/2/4 which are my bread & butter. So yes, the changes were enough for me to transition to at least 4* land if not 5* Valhalla.

Your case is definitely not unique and serves to stress one of the problems of a transition that more and more relies on Legendary Tokens (since the actual rewarded covers are few and much harder to obtain than once they were): Luck will give a huge leg up to some and screw others, regardless of effort. Like you, I championed 30+ 3*s and been playing for CP in both PVP and PVE, opening a similar amount of tokens. And yet, my Iceman remains at 5 covers, my Rulk at 3 (and I've earned most of those covers in PVP), while my Mr Fantastic has 10 Covers and TA Hulk has 8... not to mention the literal dozen of IWs I've discarded.

So, in spite of our similar amounts of effort invested, you are now in a significantly better position than I, which means that you'll have an easier time than I getting more and better rewards.

Pongie

PVE grind is normally limited by health packs. Regardless of how strong your roster is, grinding each node (at least 9 and sometimes more) repeatedly will eventually incur some damage and deaths. The way to reduce the reliance on health packs is to switch up your teams or have duplicates. Let's face it, not everyone can afford extra roster slots for duplicates, let alone obtain the right covers. So the next best option is the diversity of your roster. The three easy nodes are normally capped and don't scale as much as the others. Use this to bring your healing teams or your 2* teams that are no longer useful (except for DDQ). Daken, wolverines etc I like blade and iron fist too. The next three nodes will be the highest scaling nodes. If you can try and allocate to each node a different team. Bear in mind to not use any of the essential characters. All those characters in your roster, use them. Then do the same for the essential nodes.

Basically, as you move on to the next node, you will have a fresh team to perform the grind. If the node is particular easy, then use the same team for the next node. You will find yourself using less health packs than having your single A team do all nodes. You don't assemble the avengers to stop a petty crime nor would you call upon your villain masterminds to a simple robbery.

CNash

My problem is that after grinding the nodes down in one sub, incurring deaths and health loss across my whole usable roster, I then have to clear the next sub immediately once it appears if I want an "optimal" clear - by which point I have no health packs left and can't do it.

XandorXerxes

There's been some pretty good advice in the last page or two, but none of it really addresses the actual problem: getting the covers you need to transition. If a player aims for for a top-5 4*, but never really pulls them in his legendary tokens, the only good source of getting those covers is PvP. Lets assume a player draws 3 covers of the same top-5 4* while aiming to cover max it, and for the same of argument we'll say that those 3 covers are actually useful to the player. Also assuming 0 more 4*s are released (har-har), we're talking almost 2 years just to cover max a targeted character. Alotting 2 additional covers via covers earned through DPD in that time period and championing two 3*s that feed into the character (not entirely optimal, since each top-4* aside from Jean Grey has at least 1 completely "meh" character that feeds them covers) knocks the days down to 500.

Let's be slightly more generous - 5 covers drop from tokens, two covers earned through DPD, no more 4*s are released, and (for emphasis) all covers earned are useful would still take a 3* player just over a year to cover max someone if that someone was available in the next PvP if they are able to earn 1K every PvP that features the character.

The core of the problem to me is that only 5 or 6 4*s are considered good enough to get. When even a decent mid-tier is worth skipping, that's problematic. 1 year to someone who has a good number of 3* champions assuming decent token luck and no new releases seems like an *awfully* long time.

xidragonxi

XandorXerxes wrote:

The core of the problem to me is that only 5 or 6 4*s are considered good enough to get. When even a decent mid-tier is worth skipping, that's problematic. 1 year to someone who has a good number of 3* champions assuming decent token luck and no new releases seems like an *awfully* long time.

I think this is only true because of the lack of ISO. I'd be thrilled to max out all of my 4*s when I get them covered. The only thing that forces you to prioritize is that ISO is so scarce. I'm currently forced to decide between maxing out a mid-tier 4* who I have covered (Fury, Falcap, XFW, or PX) or keep pulling legendary tokens until I cover one of the top tier toons I don't have (iceman, kingpin or rulk). If there was enough ISO so that I could max a 4* in a week or so, I'd be happy to max out my (hypothetical) 13-cover Gwen.

Nick441234

Maxing a 4* in a week would be totally ridiculous though. All it would lead to would be more people quitting the game out of boredom. The thing that keeps people coming back is actually the slowness of the game. If you had little left to do, you'd move on and play something else.

DaveR4470

nick_chicane wrote:

Maxing a 4* in a week would be totally ridiculous though. All it would lead to would be more people quitting the game out of boredom. The thing that keeps people coming back is actually the slowness of the game. If you had little left to do, you'd move on and play something else.

That's very true. I think the issue, though isn't that the transition is too slow (although arguably it is), it's that it's increasingly becoming impossible to transition at all, because as the 4*-5* ranks grow in number and level, there's not a reasonable path for 3* teams to achieve the necessary standings to get those legendaries/4* covers.

xidragonxi

nick_chicane wrote:

Maxing a 4* in a week would be totally ridiculous though. All it would lead to would be more people quitting the game out of boredom. The thing that keeps people coming back is actually the slowness of the game. If you had little left to do, you'd move on and play something else.

You're sort of right. I guess more specifically the problem is that they're releasing new characters at a rate which is impossible to keep up with given the ISO flow. If there's 3 new characters per month, you should be theoretically able to level and use 3 new characters per month. It's more like 1 right now.

My original point was that transitioning would be much easier with a better ISO flow. If you were able to max out even your mid-tier 4*s, you'd be in a good position to compete at a high level in all events, especially given the weekly boosts. And then success begets success.

carrion_pigeons

xidragonxi wrote:

You're sort of right. I guess more specifically the problem is that they're releasing new characters at a rate which is impossible to keep up with given the ISO flow. If there's 3 new characters per month, you should be theoretically able to level and use 3 new characters per month. It's more like 1 right now.

I disagree that this is desirable design. If they make it possible to grind out a fully covered and leveled endgame character at the same rate that they get released, then people will feel obligated to actually do that, like they're supposed to, somehow, and that would lead to crazy burnout. That is actually how the game worked back when 3*s were the endgame, and people started dropping away from the game like flies.

The actual problem with the design of the game right now is that the grinders get more covers than they can use with the avilable Iso, and casual players get stuck trying to find uses for their Iso that will dig them out of the doldrums of transition because most of the useful covers are being awarded to players that can't use them, and both groups feel stymied by lack of progression.

The way to fix that isn't to make it more possible to grind the game into dust. The way to fix that is to bracket players based on average play time per event.