4* PVP: Why not?

The Bob The

I know this subject has been breached - often - but I don't see a current and active thread specifically addressing it, so I thought I'd ask in a straightforward way. Being that...

1. 4* PVP already exists (after new chars drop, so new coding doesn't appear necessary)
2. 4* players are abundant (an existing playerbase is available)

...it seems like the necessary pieces are available and in place. So howcumwhynot?

Rather than ask for it again (although - spoilers! - I'm totally asking for it again!), I thought I'd ask you all what the reasons might be for not making 4* PVP a regular thing. Why d'ya think? Can you make a case against it?

(If possible, it'd be nice to hold off on "THEY WANT ALL YOUR MONEY AND HATE FUN ARGLEBARGLE" type responses, at least for a little while, on account of this is The Internet and we've heard that noise a thousandfold already. Let's us try something different, huh?)

Meander

The only arguement I can think of is 4* gets more into the haves and have nots by further alienating the non-4* players, but honestly PVP does this already, soooo....

irwando

Its much harder to implement than just pumping out new characters and doesn't make them any more money.

JangoLore

ARGLEBARGLE

The name of Devil Dino's dance move where he waves his "foershortened forearms ferociously."

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

The Bob The

irwando wrote:

Its much harder to implement than just pumping out new characters and doesn't make them any more money.

This puzzles me. Why do you think it would be harder? Perhaps the decision of whether to run them concurrently or to alternate?

The Bob The

JangoLore wrote:

ARGLEBARGLE

The name of Devil Dino's dance move where he waves his "foershortened forearms ferociously."

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

This seems plausible. In this case, a solution could be to have both 3* and 4* PVP available at the same time, but then you'd have increased risk of burnout from the hardcores.

TxMoose

Meander wrote:

The only arguement I can think of is 4* gets more into the haves and have nots by further alienating the non-4* players, but honestly PVP does this already, soooo....

I've always wondered about how 3* bracket scoring would be if the 4s were removed. the cc scoring economy is driven by the front runners and I'm not sure how many 3* players are willing/able to front-run, meaning their scoring would just not be worth much. which would further divide things unless some more advanced guys chose to hang back and play in the intermediate pool. as it is now, I think 3*s can score some 4* covers via progression in s4 and maybe s3, if willing to spend just a little hp each event. but that might even be out of touch - been a long time since I was there.

alphabeta

I wish it would happen but I can't see them being willing to give out 4* covers for placement rewards so till the 5* game is fully developed I suspect this is on hold.

Probably will come something - about the same time we get a 4* daily cover node in DPD so they are full 'devalued' to the extent that placement rewards of 4* doesn't hurt their bottom line.

Colognoisseur

JangoLore wrote:

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

I have always believed this is the reason. There is no part of the game you can't participate in after playing for a few days. You can measure real progression as you get better in PvP and score more.

With a tier that will only be available after playing for at least a year they must have some evidence which tells them that would lead to more frustration at the entry to 2* level which is where more players live than in the forums.

I would love it but the last time I asked for it someone put this hypothesis out and it feels right to me.

tanis3303

Colognoisseur wrote:

JangoLore wrote:

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

I have always believed this is the reason. There is no part of the game you can't participate in after playing for a few days. You can measure real progression as you get better in PvP and score more.

With a tier that will only be available after playing for at least a year they must have some evidence which tells them that would lead to more frustration at the entry to 2* level which is where more players live than in the forums.

I would love it but the last time I asked for it someone put this hypothesis out and it feels right to me.

It's probably a large part of the reason, but why not tier the event? Spiderman is the current PvP, so when you enter, you have a choice. Either choose to use 3* Spiderman as the featured character, with a reward scheme similar to what is there now, OR choose to have 4* Miles as the featured character, with a slightly increased reward layout. You can't play both, which should eliminate the threat of burning out the hardcore players that feel like they have to play everything, always.

GrumpySmurf1002

tanis3303 wrote:

It's probably a large part of the reason, but why not tier the event? Spiderman is the current PvP, so when you enter, you have a choice. Either choose to use 3* Spiderman as the featured character, with a reward scheme similar to what is there now, OR choose to have 4* Miles as the featured character, with a slightly increased reward layout. You can't play both, which should eliminate the threat of burning out the hardcore players that feel like they have to play everything, always.

As someone else said, moving all the front-runners and point generators to a different bracket/slice is going to hurt the lower people that are piggybacking those points.

Your best for a 4* PvP is similar to what they did with Valentine's day & Deadpool. Two nodes are 3*, one is a 4* star node.

mohio

Colognoisseur wrote:

JangoLore wrote:

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

I have always believed this is the reason. There is no part of the game you can't participate in after playing for a few days. You can measure real progression as you get better in PvP and score more.

With a tier that will only be available after playing for at least a year they must have some evidence which tells them that would lead to more frustration at the entry to 2* level which is where more players live than in the forums.

I would love it but the last time I asked for it someone put this hypothesis out and it feels right to me.

Aren't there ways around this issue though? Like the way leaderboards were/are segregated by time played/"vet status"? If they're only competing against each other for rewards it won't seem bad to them. Also, buff the loaner up a little. Make it a base level 100-something (I dunno, 150?) and give it 2/2/2 or 3/3/3 instead of 1/1/1. Sure this will put them farther from being able to "compete" in terms of using their own, but it will make the playing field more level for all of them (since almost everyone is using the loaner until they start transitioning) and they may be able to punch above their weight class a little as well. I feel like that argument is just laziness and there are ways around it that will still ensure the game is fun for everyone.

The Bob The

Colognoisseur wrote:

With a tier that will only be available after playing for at least a year they must have some evidence which tells them that would lead to more frustration at the entry to 2* level which is where more players live than in the forums.

Wouldn't having a loaner, as they currently do for new char 4* PVP, address that? You wouldn't be super-competitive unless you had decent other characters, but that's already the case in 3* PVP.

mpqr7

I think there should be 4* pvps and other events that are brutally difficult but also give wonderful prizes.

Right now, scaling already creates the events that are very difficult, but there are no prizes to make it seem worthwhile.

I just won 70 ISO! yay? Even winning the "top prize" of 500 iso, still doesn't go far at all in getting me to champion my 4*, which requires 360,000 iso.

simonsez

Colognoisseur wrote:

JangoLore wrote:

But seriously, maybe they don't want to alienate new players by having an event that they would be unable to seriously compete in for a reeeeeeaaaaallly long time.

I have always believed this is the reason. There is no part of the game you can't participate in after playing for a few days. You can measure real progression as you get better in PvP and score more.

With a tier that will only be available after playing for at least a year they must have some evidence which tells them that would lead to more frustration at the entry to 2* level which is where more players live than in the forums.

I would love it but the last time I asked for it someone put this hypothesis out and it feels right to me.

Pretty much every other game ever designed throttles content in a way that's commensurate with how far you've progressed, so I don't see why the same can't be done here.

Smudge

There is a substantially larger portion of the player base who can participate with regularity in 3* PvP and do ~moderately well. I think that much stands to reason.

If 4* PvP were to splinter into its own realm concurrent with 3*, you likely will see much lower overall participation in the 4* PvP. That logically follows from the first point.

I see no reason not to implement a dual PvP system, however.

For those saying that points being injected into current PvP slices will necessarily drop (and I agree) with lower tier players unable/unwilling to bake (I also agree), restructure the rewards system.

I'm not sure what the best system would be without more heinous "testing" by the dev team, but I could see something like this put into place:

1. In 4* PvP, since participation will be lower, perhaps change the placement rewards gate to more heavily favor T50+ and make T51- less lucrative. At the same time, inject more progression rewards since players will still likely be hitting high thresholds... perhaps something like 3 4* covers distributed from 1k to 1.5k and a top progression of 2k. I'm just throwing out numbers here as examples, so don't jump too hard on me!

2. In 3* PvP, since participation will also be lower due to players switching to 4*, flatten out the progression and placement rewards a touch. I'm not going to pretend what this would look like, but maybe drop 3* progression to 725, trim top progression to 1.2k or lower, something like that.

Just a couple ideas anyway. It's intriguing for someone with 32 championed 3*s and only one champion 4* to think that the massive rosters might "get off my lawn" so I could perhaps have an easier time performing in 3* PvP and have better chances of improving my roster for less time invested. I like the thought, and agree that it's been far too long for something like this to happen anyway!

killerkoala

they will still only give 4* prizes for 1st place, then 3*'s there after, so that is a reason why no one would want to change to 4* pvp's, unless u have lots of 4*champions to go with ur championed 5*'s.

amusingfoo1

TxMoose wrote:

Meander wrote:

The only arguement I can think of is 4* gets more into the haves and have nots by further alienating the non-4* players, but honestly PVP does this already, soooo....

I've always wondered about how 3* bracket scoring would be if the 4s were removed. the cc scoring economy is driven by the front runners and I'm not sure how many 3* players are willing/able to front-run, meaning their scoring would just not be worth much. which would further divide things unless some more advanced guys chose to hang back and play in the intermediate pool. as it is now, I think 3*s can score some 4* covers via progression in s4 and maybe s3, if willing to spend just a little hp each event. but that might even be out of touch - been a long time since I was there.

I wonder about that, too. The front runners spend an awful lot of time and hp (I know, I used to be one) to open up the scoring. Without them, nobody will really get anywhere. And those people have to coordinate. It just won't happen organically. They need to be able to say, "I'm about to shield, queue me up", which is where an awful lot of the points in the shard originate. If those people all go to 4*, that would leave a bit of a wasteland in 3*.

As for the 3* players scoring 4* covers, yes. In s3 and s4, definitely, and probably in s1 as well, if they're in a battle chat or shield check room. Without the check room, it would take a ton of luck. But with it, I've seen 3* rosters score 2k points an event. Just takes a lot of determination (because even just hitting cupcakes, you'll still have hops where you take 200 points in hits, so you need to not let that get to you), a bit of luck, and a lot of hp for shields (since you can only do 2-4 matches per hop, you need a lot of hops).

El Satanno

I'm gonna go a little off the beaten track here. I really think that we don't see regular 4* PvP events because it would be implicit confirmation that the 4* tier is the main avenue of play. The vast unwashed masses out there in sub-3* land would likely be more than a bit turned off by that prospect, assuming the 4* reward scheme stays as niggardly as it has been historically. Can't have that, can you?

simonsez

El Satanno wrote:

I'm gonna go a little off the beaten track here. I really think that we don't see regular 4* PvP events because it would be implicit confirmation that the 4* tier is the main avenue of play. The vast unwashed masses out there in sub-3* land would likely be more than a bit turned off by that prospect, assuming the 4* reward scheme stays as niggardly as it has been historically. Can't have that, can you?

There's no reason why players with an underdeveloped roster would have to know any of that content is there. Again, isn't this how pretty much all games work? You get past a certain point, and new **** gets unlocked. Do players of those games complain in the beginning that everything isn't unlocked from the start?

wymtime

I think they are not running full fledged 4* PVP for 2 reasons. Number 1 they want 3* to have some relevance for high level PVP players so they don't start selling 3* for roster slots. #2 they don't really know what MMR will do to 3* players with 4* in the 100-200 level range and will it cause them to complain or quite.

Overall if they want to keep seasons the way it is they should just make 4* PVP alternate with 3* PVP. The biggest thing this will do is get players to actually level there 4*. I currently have 9 4* at level 70 becuse their DPDQ is not comming up anytime soon, I don't have 13 covers yet, or I don't think they are worth the ISO. If they were essential in PVP I would first bring them to 150 min so they could do some damage in the fight and possible higher if I liked them.

The problem is also we have so many characters that they would be essential 1 time every 6 months.