New Characters below 4*s

firethorne

I think I'm having a hard time understanding why any people want this. As others have said, the meta has long since moved on.

Though, having my own difficulties keeping up with that meta, is it that 3* characters are far more attainable, and thus actually usable by players struggling to make any headway into a good 4* roster? I think I could understand that motivation, but if that's the case, it seems the correct solution would just be to make 3* to 4* transition more of a thing, not to make the 3* pool even bigger.

SnowcaTT

firethorne wrote:

I think I'm having a hard time understanding why any people want this. As others have said, the meta has long since moved on.

Though, having my own difficulties keeping up with that meta, is it that 3* characters are far more attainable, and thus actually usable by players struggling to make any headway into a good 4* roster? I think I could understand that motivation, but if that's the case, it seems the correct solution would just be to make 3* to 4* transition more of a thing, not to make the 3* pool even bigger.

But isn't making the 4* bigger the same problem - actually even worse since the 4*'s are so much more rare to get than the 3*'s? And they cost so much more, each time another is introduced you are put in another million-iso behind hole?

The only "solution" to releasing lots more 4*'s seems to be put them everywhere you used to see 3*'s (high % in heroics, PVP alliance rewards, T250 event rewards and so forth) --- and increase ISO flow to make it possible to max a couple of them every season.

SpecSpecter

firethorne wrote:

I think I'm having a hard time understanding why any people want this. As others have said, the meta has long since moved on.

Personally my own reasons for wanting more characters honestly probably aren't very good. I value character aesthetics and the thrill of collecting over actual game mechanics and balance. I'm the kind of person that would rather use a character I like even if the character isn't optimal as well as the kind of person that likes collecting characters even if I don't really intend on using them.

That aside though, I also see more then a bit about how people actually do seem to want more lower-then-4* characters in the like of suggestion threads, my alliance, and feedback from friends that are new to the game. I mean, new content is fun, but what isn't fun is when said new content can only really be enjoyed by people who've been playing for two years or more or people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for an otherwise free game...

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

firethorne wrote:

I think I'm having a hard time understanding why any people want this. As others have said, the meta has long since moved on.

Though, having my own difficulties keeping up with that meta, is it that 3* characters are far more attainable, and thus actually usable by players struggling to make any headway into a good 4* roster? I think I could understand that motivation, but if that's the case, it seems the correct solution would just be to make 3* to 4* transition more of a thing, not to make the 3* pool even bigger.

But isn't making the 4* bigger the same problem - actually even worse since the 4*'s are so much more rare to get than the 3*'s? And they cost so much more, each time another is introduced you are put in another million-iso behind hole?

The only "solution" to releasing lots more 4*'s seems to be put them everywhere you used to see 3*'s (high % in heroics, PVP alliance rewards, T250 event rewards and so forth) --- and increase ISO flow to make it possible to max a couple of them every season.

That would defeat D3's purpose of making us play the game forever & have slower than a snail's pace of progression. The current model accomplishes that. If each new character requires 1,000,000 after getting the 13 covers, imagine how long you'd have to play to actually max everyone. That said, D3 may wanna start thinking about the possibility that this many character releases in such a short time is actually turning people away from the game, not garnering more interest in it. I honestly am overwhelmed by all this & at the same time, underinterested.

Blahahah

There stems 3 problems with adding a new 3* character:

1) Inserting them into the DDQ rotation, which has been a set rotation for a while now
2) Creating the champion levels and figuring a semi-reasonable character for them to champion into
3) Release cycles, and balancing.


Those 3 problems don't really exist in 4* characters:
1) DDQ rotation for 4* happens once a week and is easily altered since the change won't appear for a while.
2) Champion levels are pretty static, no one gains 5* covers through championing I don't think
3) Release cycles fit the 4*s best because the field is so open, its easy to find abilities that probably won't break the game, and target ones that do. 3*s are surprisingly balanced outside of IF. Also its easy to make a character fit within the vast scope of a 4* power level, since it varies so greatly and is so dependent on certain key abilities or combinations.

Mawtful

Felessa wrote:

Another thing is: you have color schemes missing on the inferior tiers: like a 2* , or a 3* . At least, the 3* tier should have ALL color combinations...

I've thought the same thing. The devs insist that the 3* tier is "complete" even though there's a few colour combinations which aren't present.

Unknown

Blahahah wrote:

There stems 3 problems with adding a new 3* character:

1) Inserting them into the DDQ rotation, which has been a set rotation for a while now
2) Creating the champion levels and figuring a semi-reasonable character for them to champion into
3) Release cycles, and balancing.


Those 3 problems don't really exist in 4* characters:
1) DDQ rotation for 4* happens once a week and is easily altered since the change won't appear for a while.
2) Champion levels are pretty static, no one gains 5* covers through championing I don't think
3) Release cycles fit the 4*s best because the field is so open, its easy to find abilities that probably won't break the game, and target ones that do. 3*s are surprisingly balanced outside of IF. Also its easy to make a character fit within the vast scope of a 4* power level, since it varies so greatly and is so dependent on certain key abilities or combinations.

As a standalone character, there's nothing wrong with IF. I'd be more concerned about Cyclops.

firethorne

SnowcaTT wrote:

But isn't making the 4* bigger the same problem - actually even worse since the 4*'s are so much more rare to get than the 3*'s?

But, that's ultimately the problem I'm getting at. It isn't that there is any real shortage of content. It's that the developers have failed at building a logical path to it. Players are getting to a place where they have all 40 three star characters fully covered. And they're asking for more, because despite having all 40 3*s, they don't have a single 4* that they consider viable. They know if they get a 4*, it could be two years before they have it fully covered. They want new content they can actually use before the next winter Olympics, and they know that, as the game is today, that won't be 4*s.

The only "solution" to releasing lots more 4*'s seems to be put them everywhere you used to see 3*'s (high % in heroics, PVP alliance rewards, T250 event rewards and so forth) --- and increase ISO flow to make it possible to max a couple of them every season.

And I think that would be a good solution. In a game where 5*s are starting to dominate, we should be well past limiting 4* rewards to 10 out of 500 players for a standard event.

Partyof5

As a casual player who recently fully covered his first 3* character, I'd love to see a few more 1, 2, and 3*s.

I know the D3 needs to make money. We the players need the game to be fun in order to keep playing, and in return, spend money on the game. I'm at about 290 days and it's beginning to feel like work more than fun lately. Every time I see a new 4* or 5* character appear I feel discouraged instead of excited, because I know it will be a year before I have a chance at making them useful on my roster. I also hate seeing a 4* Howard the Duck or Spider-Gwen while seeing Juggernaut and Iron Man at 1*. It doesn't make sense from a Marvel universe power perspective, which takes some of the fun out of the game.

If they want to make money, why not make our $$$ feel less like buying a lottery ticket and give us some more solid options. What about selling characters skins or cover art variations? I'd love to see Colossus with a John Byrne cover. How about giving us some more specialized options when buying cover packs so at least our chances are narrowed to choices we'd want rather than constantly getting covers for characters I don't want to roster? Trying to force us into spending money by limiting our options on how to spend it does not make we want to spend money on the game, it feels like I'm being scammed.

Bring in some new, fun options and people will be more willing to spend money on it.

Pongie

SpecSpecter wrote:

Actually I might as well ask, just how many people actually care which characters are at which level or rather just care if they are useful mechanically or not? Does it matter to most of the player base that Electra is a 4* and Daredevil is a mere 3* or that if we ever get a Drax he will be 4* despite Gamora and Rocket/Groot being 3*s, regardless of their abilities?

I agree that the star levels makes no sense what so ever. Perhaps the next stage of champion is to lift all the level caps to 350/450. That way the lower stars just need more covers to be levelled with the higher stars. Then you can remove the lazy version characters to make room for new characters in the lower tiers. Eg. If they want to introduce a new 1* replace storm, want a new 2* replace captain America, a 3* then replace Thor.

Felessa

Blahahah wrote:

There stems 3 problems with adding a new 3* character:

1) Inserting them into the DDQ rotation, which has been a set rotation for a while now
2) Creating the champion levels and figuring a semi-reasonable character for them to champion into
3) Release cycles, and balancing.

Those 3 problems don't really exist in 4* characters:
1) DDQ rotation for 4* happens once a week and is easily altered since the change won't appear for a while.

Except the fact that we don't really have a 4* DDQ... not like a "Big Enchilada" offering a determined 4* cover every five days...

And DDQ was introduced before we had 40 3*s, so their rotation was never a problem... it got fixed in current rotation as we know because they simply stopped releasing new 3*s... what is really sad, imo.

san

I'd love to see some more 1* and 2* characters just for collectors, but both tiers should be free in terms of roster cost. In other words, roster slots only are used when one adds a 3*-5* character. This would add more fun to the game.

How not to dilute the pool? Add them to standard tokens ONLY, making standard tokens perhaps worth something! At least people would get some new and cool covers that they can add at no cost and fiddle around with new characters. It could also be an excellent place to try out new game mechanics for the devs and collect data!

JeffCascadian

SnowcaTT wrote:

But isn't making the 4* bigger the same problem - actually even worse since the 4*'s are so much more rare to get than the 3*'s? And they cost so much more, each time another is introduced you are put in another million-iso behind hole?

I agree that this is a big problem. We're quickly reaching saturation point for characters. Some might argue that we've already passed that point, especially given how difficult those covers are to obtain.

One solution I see for introducing new characters at lower levels of rarity is to retire old ones. For example, retire Bag-Man and replace him with Angel. Anybody who already has Bag-Man can keep him <snicker> but his draws from tokens would be completely replaced by Angel's covers. This could work for the first three levels of rarity except for the characters that are part of the prelude-- . The rest, , could all be replaced with new characters. (I think many players would love to see replaced by a even-better-than-before .)

kyo28

I think it would be great if new characters can be spread out over 2 , 3 , 4 and 5 . And there would be an easy way to do that in order to keep long-time players satisfied as well as give new players a chance to progress.

The way to go about this is to work with season tokens. Meaning that all existing characters are part of season 1 tokens and starting character 101 for example, those would be limited to season 2 tokens. When you activate a token, you can then chose from which season you want the token to pull a cover.

Let's say I'm a seasoned player: I have a lot of the season 1 covers so I opt for a season 2 cover and have a bigger chance of getting one of the new characters.
However, as a beginning player I can activate the same token as a season 1 token and get covers from the existing 100 characters, thus giving me a chance to progress at my own pace.

By splitting it up in season packs, you give players the chance to manage their own pulls and progression.

GrumpySmurf1002

Blahahah wrote:

There stems 3 problems with adding a new 3* character:
1) Inserting them into the DDQ rotation, which has been a set rotation for a while now
2) Creating the champion levels and figuring a semi-reasonable character for them to champion into
3) Release cycles, and balancing.

1) The DDQ rotation was originally set without Scarlet, Vision, etc. Easy solution to tack them on to the end and just continue on.
2) You've already got 4* without a 3* that champions into them. Characters that lead to Quake, Punisher, et al is an easy solution here.
3) Not sure why balancing becomes a problem with another 3*, any more than it does a new 4 or 5*.

mohio

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

There stems 3 problems with adding a new 3* character:
1) Inserting them into the DDQ rotation, which has been a set rotation for a while now
2) Creating the champion levels and figuring a semi-reasonable character for them to champion into
3) Release cycles, and balancing.

3) Not sure why balancing becomes a problem with another 3*, any more than it does a new 4 or 5*.

I think it's not so much balancing as it is "completeness" (or a game designer might call it "design space"). What I mean by that is there are already characters in the 3* tier that are doing everything the devs want that tier of characters to be able to do. You have AP theft, AP generation, tile spamming, pure damage, special tile destruction, special tile theft, board shakes, color changers, stuns, etc. The only thing missing from the tier is invisibility and ability change (although you do get it a little with mystique, IF, colossus, luke cage. It is pretty clear that the devs intended those things to be only at 4* and rarer.

So, do you really want a 3* Rogue or Cable, with recycled abilities packaged together in a different way to pass off as something new? Or do you want a legitimately new 4* character with an interesting ability or interaction we haven't quite seen yet? To throw it back to the beginning, the design space in the 3* tier is mostly dried up. Anything "new" would simply be a different color set or a different way of packaging old abilities together to hopefully achieve something that feels fresh. Instead the devs prefer to keep finding new design space in the 4* tier, and the higher rarity affords them more space to do "cooler" things. Like Punisher stunning his own teammates and then unleashing hell in his "army of one".

Eddiemon

SpecSpecter wrote:

Now for all I know this sort of thing has been answered plenty of times in the past, but for me it's something I never really understood.
Why stop making 3* characters?

Because the game has 'stages'. A 1* stage, a 2* stage, a 3* stage and so on. They want players to be able to reach the current new release character stage in a given timeframe. Every time you add a character to a tier you make maxing out any character in that tier longer because they don't come up as fixed prizes or random rewards as often.

Part of it I guess I understand, MPQ wants to focus on players in the long game and 3*s and below wouldn't offer players in the 4*-5* range much if any incentive.
For me though a lot of the fun of this game comes from seeing the new characters as well as getting the chance to use said new characters. I would consider myself low in the 3*-4* transition range and while I'm getting close to the point of usable 4*s my reaction to new 4*s typically is "Oh, another character I probably will never get to use".

Why wouldn't you get to use that character? As the tiers have expanded D3 have responded by increasing the number of ways you can get those characters to try and keep maxing out a tier consistent. Just for 4 stars they increased the number of placement rewards, created DDQ4* events and created 20CP legendary purchases to increases your 4* covers by 25% and increased the percentage of 3 and 4*s in all token types.

Not just 3*s though, even if I wouldn't necessarily use them I would love to see new 2*s and 1*s too.
I suppose at the heart of this is character availability. There are so many characters I want to see in the game that aren't in it but frankly many of them I just really can't see as 4*s or 5*, but that fact I think doesn't mean they should be excluded from the game all together..

Star rating indicates rarity of covers and how you acquire them, nothing else.

SpecSpecter

Eddiemon wrote:

Why wouldn't you get to use that character? As the tiers have expanded D3 have responded by increasing the number of ways you can get those characters to try and keep maxing out a tier consistent. Just for 4 stars they increased the number of placement rewards, created DDQ4* events and created 20CP legendary purchases to increases your 4* covers by 25% and increased the percentage of 3 and 4*s in all token types.

I play pretty frequently but I would still consider myself to be solidly a casual player, after a year and a half of playing my 3* roster is pretty solid but my 4* roster is pretty well desolate. Don't get me wrong I have quite a few of them but aside from 3-4 they all are stuck at 3 covers or less, well outside the realm of usability (aside from allowing access to required character nodes). Thing is, even though they increased the possibility of getting 4*s by quite a bit for more then a few players they are still quite difficult to get. I mean, I rely entirely on Daily Supply and 3* champions to get 4*s outside just sheer blind luck (but given how difficult it still is to get just 3*s out of tokens...). I probably get a hold of 2 random covers a month, probably half of which I end up having no interest in (5 of my last 10 4*s were all TA Hulks and Mr. Fs). Stuff like extending the 4* reward to the top 10 instead of just the top 1 or 4* nodes in DDQ really don't reach players like me because both of those things basically only help people that already have 4* but does very little in helping people get them in the first place...