Realistically, there should be more 1* than 4* characters?

20three

Right? If the game was balanced and made sense? I mean, it's like they don't realize that every time they add another 4 star, it lowers the odds bit by bit. 3.2% to get the 4 star you want in a legendary token and .2% in heroic. Those odds are abysmal to the point where it will almost be advantageous to drop the 120 cp on the cover you want. Not only that, but there is such little variety for new players with the one stars, I'm sure getting your 40th venom cover after a month of playing gets just as old as your 400th. Zero comprehension of oversaturation with these guys. There should not be more 4 star than 1 and 2 combined. Period.

Solutions:

Drastically stop the rate of new characters, especially d-list scrubs like quake, nova, and irrelevant jokes like howard the duck.

Split up 4 stars into classic and latest for legendary tokens. Everyone after...idk red hulk is latest?

Orion

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. 1*s are basic characters that are obsolete quickly. Why do you need a lot of them? You quickly move on to 2*s and then 3*s. It's not a pyramid, it's more like a bell curve. Lots of characters in the middle and a few at each end.

snlf25

I like quake. I agree that only introducing 4* and above from this point forward is unhealthy for the game though. At some point everybody has the same roster from 3* down and the same poorly covered useless 4*s and the same well covered older 4*s.

Pongie

Doesn't make any sense that there are more "rare" and "legendary" characters than "common" and "uncommon" characters.

MPQ universe where "rare" and "legendary" is over half the population and "common" and "uncommon" are the minority

Mawtful

I've been playing around with a concept that I'm trying to modify to fit MPQ. In short, imagine if every character started at 1 star but could be "ranked up" via some system. Quote a few other games have something similar, where cards/characters have a "potential" rating and each tier unlocks extra abilities and power.

This sort of system is much more suited to players choosing their favourites and levelling those first over the rest of their roster. The largest "concern" for the devs would be creating a system where players only need a very small handful of characters. In this case, not only does balance become even more important, but it's likely that some of the core mechanics of the game would need to be changed; I think there would need to be a greater distinction in the roles or archetypes that any given character is supposed to fill and the game would need to favour smart/clever play rather than speed for quick wins. So, you can probably guess, there would need to be huge changes to how the game is played before you even get to changing the way characters are gained, levelled up, and ranked up (or starred/tiered up).

Anyway, I think this sort of system could also be used to "streamline" the character count - there's only 1 Wolverine in the game, but by ranking him up you'd unlock the ability to train increasingly stronger powers. So when you open up your first Wolverine cover, you get a level-1, 1* Wolverine (Naked Project X escapee variant) but through the process of levelling up you can rank him to 2*, which increases his base stats and gives him a new level cap and the ability to upgrade his old 1* powers into 2* powers. And so on. There's quite a few ways to consider the level/rank up process, especially in conjunction with the Champion system. Wolverine is obviously the most thorough example, since we've already got so many, but I don't think this system excludes characters that only have a single variant.

GMadMan040

We have long since passed the point of no return in this area.

Good ideas for MPQ 2 though!

Ducky

20three wrote:

irrelevant jokes like howard the duck.

Thems fighting words!!

Chrono_Tata

Pongie wrote:

Doesn't make any sense that there are more "rare" and "legendary" characters than "common" and "uncommon" characters.

MPQ universe where "rare" and "legendary" is over half the population and "common" and "uncommon" are the minority

To be fair, I think common, rare, etc., refers to the draw/drop rates and not the actual amounts of characters.

Xenoberyll

Chrono_Tata wrote:

Pongie wrote:

Doesn't make any sense that there are more "rare" and "legendary" characters than "common" and "uncommon" characters.

MPQ universe where "rare" and "legendary" is over half the population and "common" and "uncommon" are the minority

To be fair, I think common, rare, etc., refers to the draw/drop rates and not the actual amounts of characters.

This, if there were more 1stars the drop rate for each of them will be lower thus making them more rare.

SpecSpecter

Ugh, I've been saying something along these lines ever since I started playing. I realize that this game is entirely if not exclusively focused on the long-term players as they are the ones that sink money into the game, but it feels like new players are all but ignored. Yeah, I understand that 1*s get passed over by 2*s very quickly but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be much more of a variety then there is for both. (I also realize that the bulk of 1*s and 2*s aren't so much there to be player characters but rather NPCs to be fought against, but even that can do with a HUGE boost in variety. Who else is sick of fighting Bullseye, Moonstone, and Yelena over and over again?)

Der_Lex

Snarkiness aside, the upside of a smaller 1* and 2* pool is that as a new player, you'll have a playable team relatively quickly. The current selection pretty much covers all necessary bases for team composition and includes all of the big names like Cap, IM, Wolvie and Thor. Expanding and therefore diluting that pool will only make it harder for new players to get into the game and advance.

The same line of reasoning was actually also stated by the devs themselves as for why the 3* pool will remain at 40 for now. People already have difficulty covering a decent group of 3* within a reasonable amount of time as it is. And yes, this problem carries over into the expanding 4* tier as well, which means that the devs either need to become a lot less stingy with 4* rewards to compensate for the larger character pool, or accept that a lot of players will burn out on the 3-4* transition.

Monged4life

You misunderstand the current concept for new characters. New players aren't supposed to get to use them unless they play for 2 solid years (even then no guarantees) or spend literally thousands of pounds/dollars chasing them.

A new player seeing an advert for Quake (for example) being in MPQ should really have the opportunity to use her, otherwise if that's what tempted you in, why stay?

Razamataz

Orion wrote:

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. 1*s are basic characters that are obsolete quickly.

Can someone please explain that to the devs then since they are constantly using well overpowered 1 stars for 90% of all pve's

optimus2861

MPQ has kind of outlived its design parameters. It was designed around 2* & 3* rewards with corresponding amounts of ISO, HP, etc. 4* were originally not-very-good, trophy characters. Then as the 3* tier started to saturate, out came the XForce buff and 4hor, and the meta shifted permanently into the 4* tier (that's about when I started playing). Now of course there's nothing but 4* & 5* releases for the remainder of the game's shelf life, unless Demiurge thinks they can pull one last mega-whale rabbit out of their hats with a 6* tier.

The rewards in the game have never really shifted to accommodate the fact that the veterans are deep into the 4* tier and making progress in the 5*. ISO amounts are piddling to pathetic. Placement rewards are remarkably stingy given the current meta. But, as long as the retention and revenue numbers hold, expect to see no changes here.

Calnexin

Mawtful wrote:

I've been playing around with a concept that I'm trying to modify to fit MPQ. In short, imagine if every character started at 1 star but could be "ranked up" via some system. Quote a few other games have something similar, where cards/characters have a "potential" rating and each tier unlocks extra abilities and power.

I think that's a great idea, but completely untenable at this stage of the game's life. Players have far too much invested in what they have to accept a tiered hero system retroactively. If they make a bona fide sequel, I think this format should be considered.

Calnexin

Razamataz wrote:

Orion wrote:

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. 1*s are basic characters that are obsolete quickly.

Can someone please explain that to the devs then since they are constantly using well overpowered 1 stars for 90% of all pve's

I think they're used as a crutch. The 1-2* tier is pretty well balanced on the enemy side, and all they really have to do to adjust difficulty is bump their level. The 3-4* tier requires a little more finesse because the powers can be esoteric. Depending on what goons or characters they're combined with, the AI will either be horribly inept or totally devastating.

I was kind of thrilled to see 3* Bullseye in the recent Howard event. I like seeing more variety. But to be honest, I found him way less threatening than 2* Bullseye, which is sad.

TxMoose

Calnexin wrote:

I was kind of thrilled to see 3* Bullseye in the recent Howard event. I like seeing more variety. But to be honest, I found him way less threatening than 2* Bullseye, which is sad.

I thought putting him on a spidey essential was a little trolling. you either have to completely avoid making a purple match to give him no tiles to destroy or deny deny deny, but that only goes so far with an 8AP ability. tried that one with champed xp and 180 xfw and xp was only one left at the end and BE did the killing - was ugly. but dang xp red is good...eventually

Lidolas

Pongie wrote:

Doesn't make any sense that there are more "rare" and "legendary" characters than "common" and "uncommon" characters.

MPQ universe where "rare" and "legendary" is over half the population and "common" and "uncommon" are the minority

We're talking about superheroes. Most of them are rare and/or legendary. That's what makes them "super" It makes sense to me that very few of them are labeled as common or uncommon.

SnowcaTT

Inverse pyramid scheme: more 2*'s than 1, more 3's than 2's....they won't stop making 4's until they have 80ish or so (twice as many as 3*'s).

At which point you'll have enough iso to max ten of those 4*'s out - not that you'll have the covers since they'll continue to be rare despite having/needing more of them than any other cover. I mean, from everything we've seen so far that's how it has to be, right?

TxMoose

SnowcaTT wrote:

Inverse pyramid scheme: more 2*'s than 1, more 3's than 2's....they won't stop making 4's until they have 80ish or so (twice as many as 3*'s).

At which point you'll have enough iso to max ten of those 4*'s out - not that you'll have the covers since they'll continue to be rare despite having/needing more of them than any other cover. I mean, from everything we've seen so far that's how it has to be, right?

if true, I should just move on now. was looking forward to a slowing down of things, which I thought was imminent in the next few months. what you said unfortunately makes sense by looking at what they've done before.

Sandwichboy

The real issue isn't that there's too many "rare and legendary" characters but that they are exponentially harder to complete and yet so numerous as to make doing so randomised to the point of absurdity. You want to make the focus of the game be the 4 * characters, then the percentage drop rate needs to be adjusted to compensate, otherwise it just screams obvious cash grab.