Is it harder for 1*star users to transition to 2*stars now?

Unknown

The older tournaments used to feature 3 possible 2* star covers as ranking rewards. However, the current tournaments seem to only give out 1 2*star cover at the most for ranking rewards.

(Also, a long time ago, you can get 2x 2*star covers from progression. Shortly after Shields arrive, they removed 1 of those covers.)

Does this mean that it is now harder for newer players to transition to 2 stars?

Unknown

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick, so 1* users without OBW have it even tougher.

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick,

Not very familiar with the concept. Could you explain it to me how it works?

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick,

Not very familiar with the concept. Could you explain it to me how it works?

It's gone now, so its no longer applicable.

Basically there was a prologue mission that spiderman could heal you in.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick,

Not very familiar with the concept. Could you explain it to me how it works?

Some of the Venom missions in the prologue used to gift you a Spidey that could heal.

Bacon Pants

mechgouki wrote:

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick,

Not very familiar with the concept. Could you explain it to me how it works?

You used to be able go not the prologue and play the Venom mission. You were given a Spider-Man with the yellow healing ability. Go in, heal, beat up on Venom, and return to PVP or PVE fully healed. They took the yellow cover Spider-Man given to you for that mission and replaced it with a blue or purple Spider-Man.

Of course, if you have your own Spidey you can still do this.

Unknown

Oic, thanks for the info.

But anyway, back on the subject. Is it harder for newer players to progress now that the 2*star covers rewards are fewer?

Unknown

There should really be a 1* star healer, as a third ability for modern BW for example, would make life so much easier for new/1* players...

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick, so 1* users without OBW have it even tougher.

They did what? When? I'm sure the missions were there hours ago. And most were yellow/teamup.

Or did they mess up the loaned spiderman I'm not looking at regularly?

Unknown

I'm a fairly new player (46 days), and I had no trouble shifting to 2*. (max covers for thor/wolvie/cStorm, with a backup options of captain Am and Magneto now)

There are some good 2* options in the prologue(thor/daken/wolvie), that help start you off.

Progression awards in events are better options for increasing your 2* characters than the ranking awards. Play in PVP events where you can get a hero cover(~300 points) od definately hit up the PvE events in the early rounds. If you see an opprotunity to cash in on a ranking award as well, jump on it.

What I also have noticed is that the standard tokens are handing out 2* or greater with them more often as of late(or it has felt that way for me).

As far as other 2* characters, I have already gotten:
CapAm - 4/5/1
Magneto NOW - 3/4/2
mHawkeye - 1/4/5
Moonstone - 3/2/2
Daken - 4/1
Ares - 3/1/1
OBW - 3/0/0
Bullseye - 2/1/1

Most have not been leveled yet, as I see no need to dump ISO into any of the characters until I'm ready to use them. OBW covers have evaded me, but figure they will start showing up soon.

I've not paid for any covers yet.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Ghast wrote:

Remember that they also removed the Venom heal trick, so 1* users without OBW have it even tougher.

They did what? When? I'm sure the missions were there hours ago. And most were yellow/teamup.

Or did they mess up the loaned spiderman I'm not looking at regularly?

They have been gone for at least two weeks now. There were multiple threads on people pointing this out, but most of them went under the radar. The Venom chapter was edited so that the loaner Spidey in each mission no longer have their yellow healing ability.

over_clocked

how could you get 3 covers for Daken lol gimme, he only has 2 abilities and passive at that

pasa, yes, they removed healing from the loaned Spidey. also the recent events are more and more hurtful, so that you don't even have to heal, boom, healthpack gone rather.

Unknown

locked wrote:

how could you get 3 covers for Daken lol gimme, he only has 2 abilities and passive at that

Was a typo.

Corrected. Thanks.

Nemek

Aren't massive amounts of 2* characters given out in PvE? Don't people joke about getting 2-4 2* characters every day of a PvE?

The devs specifically said why the number of covers were reduced in PvP - the people winning them didn't need them. That the majority of people at that transition level were in need of ISO and not covers, so they wanted to balance that.

Unknown

locked wrote:

yes, they removed healing from the loaned Spidey. also the recent events are more and more hurtful, so that you don't even have to heal, boom, healthpack gone rather.

What a cheap move really. Especially as that healing was really low level, whoever used it deserved it.

As for events IIRC the first we called designed for health pack burning was Ares' mighty thing but te PVE really topped that with intro of scaling and keeps it that way.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Oic, thanks for the info.

But anyway, back on the subject. Is it harder for newer players to progress now that the 2*star covers rewards are fewer?

I'd assert "yes", if only under the guise that obtaining the required OBW blue covers to enable active healing are much more random to obtain. Previously, one could plan for OBW 46-75 placements in PvP to win her covers. Obtaining 5 OBW blues through random heroic pulls is much harder to obtain.

Also, from the Game Statistics thread that IceIX updated yesterday, the most used covers in the game are now all 2** covers.

The intent is quite clear here. The move was made to monetize the 1* --> 2** transition, and is working quite well apparently. Can this transition occur without the mandatory paywall? Sure, but the wall to overcome is much steeper now. The same can be said for 2** --> 3*** transition as well. With fewer multiple 3 *** covers being awarded per event and that 3*** covers are heavily back-weighted in levels and abilities to be useful (need 3 in most colors minimum to be marginally effective, at least 9 out of 13 covers to reach an effective capped level), the paywall has become much higher there as well.

Unknown

@Lyrian

Yeah, I fully agree.

But what Nemek says makes sense too. I guess we'll have to ask new players to know for sure.

I remembered in my time, when I was struggling to get 2*stars, the tourneys were a good way. Getting to above 45th place (I think it was below 20th to get 3x 2*star covers at that time), was the best chance I had.

And no, I didn't have too much covers from PVE. I had just enough for what I need, not too much.

Trying to transition and advance to 2 stars was not too difficult considering the amount of covers we got during those days. But right now the amount is reduced. Will it still be easy to get the 13 covers you need?

IceIX

Lyrian wrote:

Also, from the Game Statistics thread that IceIX updated yesterday, the most used covers in the game are now all 2** covers.

The intent is quite clear here. The move was made to monetize the 1* --> 2** transition, and is working quite well apparently. Can this transition occur without the mandatory paywall? Sure, but the wall to overcome is much steeper now. The same can be said for 2** --> 3*** transition as well. With fewer multiple 3 *** covers being awarded per event and that 3*** covers are heavily back-weighted in levels and abilities to be useful (need 3 in most colors minimum to be marginally effective, at least 9 out of 13 covers to reach an effective capped level), the paywall has become much higher there as well.

The paywall, such as it is (and we don't see it as one) hasn't really been raised from any of our metrics. The only thing that's really changed is that users are hitting a little more of a wall in getting strong 2* abilities, but this doesn't tend to be a problem as most users will max out their 1*s now at about the same time as their 2*s start coming into their own. This wasn't really a thing before as they were Iso constrained at that time, so many users would start switching over at around level 30-40 instead of 50 as the 2*s were cheaper to level at that point. The change in cover selling made a pretty big wave in how 1-2* transition worked. From a pure data point of view, it had the effect we wanted in making users have a smoother transition. From a play pattern standpoint as well. But as pointed out in the thread, from a user satisfaction position? That's harder to measure.

Moral

My experience is exactly as IceIX describes:
IM35 to 30
Venom to 25
MBW to 25

Won enough cap, modern hawkeye and wolverine covers in The Hunt and never came close to maxing out any 1* characters.

With 1* players on a competitive footing with MMR, it seems like newer players might have an easier time filling out 3* covers such as Punisher than trying to get a complete Wolverine.

Unknown

Obviously it will be harder to transition to a 2* lineup from 1* now that there are significantly fewer 2* covers given out as tournament rewards.

IceIX

bonerang wrote:

Obviously it will be harder to transition to a 2* lineup from 1* now that there are significantly fewer 2* covers given out as tournament rewards.

That's actually not what we're seeing though. The transition is just different than it was before. Before, people would transition into 2*s with fully filled abilitied out characters in that ranking while their 1*s generally weren't even close to max level. Now we're seeing players that are approaching 45-50s on their 1*s making the same transition with characters that aren't necessarily at 13 yet, which is much more like the 2-3* transition players experience.