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

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

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.

Purely data-driven design that does what you want but that nobody likes is still just poor design. When you say 'smoother', you must mean 'slower', because that is essentially what a reduction in cover availability accomplishes. I do understand the myriad efforts to increase ISO supply throughout the game, and I do think that is a long-needed correction, and even helps counteract the "unintended" additional Boosts nerf implemented with stacking boosts. I also get that constraining 3* covers in events is a way to make the playerbase 'correct' for beginner players shooting too high in events and scoring 3* covers instead of relevant 2* covers, although I disagree with this approach as well, I fell deeply into this trap with ~25x 3* covers with no semblance of a 2* team to speak of. But, how in the tiniest-of-kitties does gutting prizes from 3x 2* covers to just 1x 'help' people transition???

You know what? I don't need an answer to that question. What we do need is events geared towards helping build 2* teams. Why not have tourneys that only allow 1*-2* heroes, where top 1, or 1-2 get a 3* cover plus next tier, 3-5 get 3x 2* covers, 6-15 get 2x 2* covers, and so forth. Reduce ISO and HP rewards to keep the sharks out of the kiddie pool. Proper tuning would probably also allow broadening the 3* cover prize support in high-level events and reducing/eliminating 2* covers from the prize tiers.

Rootbreaker

I'm also concerned about the threshold for the 2nd *** cover moving up from top 15 to 10. What was the rationale behind that?

Unknown

I am new to MPQ... (Started Last Week) and thanks to Hulk event, the transition was ok. My wife started playing on her own account 2 days ago and she is STRUGGLING.

With the hulk event, i could use most of my heroes I received through the prologue and grind through to a respectable 2 covers of wolverine! I was able to push through the hulk event with a limited hero pool because of the recruit tokens.

The success from the Hulk event got me engaged and made me want to put money into the game. Buy roster slots and even bought a few pulls with tokens for the Heroic Mode.

My wife however, is having MAJOR issues. The Heroic event limits the amount of heroes you can use. The fact that the 1 stars are limited to only Modern BW and Modern Storm prevents her from being able to progress.

Her heroes right now are 1*'s Iron Man, Black Widow, Storm Hawkeye. 2*'s Dakken and MN Mags. She only has 2 heroes that are available currently.

I have struggled with her frustration level because I said how easy this is and how fun it is to get involved. She is not having the same experience as I did with the Hulk event that's for sure.

Polarity's guide is a great tool for new players to read. It gave some good insight. It's a bit out of date now with the changes but still filled with great information.

Unknown

Heroic juggernaut isn't an especially newbie friendly event though. Whatever the next event is will surely be friendlier to newbies. If she only started two days ago there's still plenty of prologue left.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

... which is much more like the 2-3* transition players experience.

You say that like it's a good thing

Unknown

The Juggernaut event is not a good place for a couple of weeks old player. I am struggling with many of the missions and I've been playing for months, I just don't have the appropriate characters levelled to accomplish very much.

Tell the wife to not get discouraged by one difficult event. This is a game meant for the long haul, not to master in a few weeks.

The devs are right to use metrics to measure their changes. If they determined needed game changes based solely on forum response, the game would be ridiculous and still the forums would be unhappy.

Unknown

Harder? Sure, but it used to be extremely easy and didn't require maxing a 1-star let alone 3.

Unknown

dlaw008 wrote:

The devs are right to use metrics to measure their changes. If they determined needed game changes based solely on forum response, the game would be ridiculous and still the forums would be unhappy.

I agree with this thought process. Metrics give you the data to make proper decisions.

I will say this, if I wasn't such a hound for information, I would not have found these boards. and my progression would not be this quick.

I do have a question on brackets. Is it really just the first X amount of people to click the fight button get put into the same league? Like my wife could be in with 9000+ veterens with 6 3*s?

There isn't a filter system to match players based on an aggregate score like (avg. hero level and/or collective amount of ISO)?

MarvelMan

@r0cky143 While its true she would be tossed into a bracket with some serious veterans she is only competing with them in the rankings, not who she is fighting. The point of MMR is to even that playing field so that people are matched up with teams at their strength level. So if she has one stars in the 25-30 level range she would be fighting them, not the 6x 141s. Its kind of the system you suggest would be more fair, but based more on win/loss vs opponent strength (and probably some other stuff tossed in).

As a tangent, when you hear people talking about tanking it is to lower that MMR so they are matched up with people from lower tiers. It is good to be a big fish among small ones.

Unknown

The core character of the 2* lineup is Original Black Widow. Thor, Wolverine, Classic Storm, Daken, and Ares are all very solid characters that round out your top-line 2* team, but OBW brings healing, and that is a game-changer.

I've got a solid core of 2* characters, with a couple of 3*s that are approaching viability with another couple covers. 85 Thor, 85 Wolvie, 85 cStorm, and 69 Daken are my set of hitters, and I just need one yellow Thor to have all of them optimally specced. My OBW is only 3/4/3 and level 61, though, and about half of those covers came from the first half of the Hulk event, where she was featured in the event token. I think she was either 1/3/0 or 2/3/0 before Hulk.

It has been very difficult to develop OBW, since you have to rely almost entirely on random drops from Heroic tokens. I wouldn't be that shocked if I managed to finish my first 3* (probably Punisher or 3* Thor, maybe Doom) before I finish OBW, unless she shows up in another special event token that's accessible in moderate quantities.

Unknown

r0cky143 wrote:

dlaw008 wrote:

The devs are right to use metrics to measure their changes. If they determined needed game changes based solely on forum response, the game would be ridiculous and still the forums would be unhappy.

I agree with this thought process. Metrics give you the data to make proper decisions.

I will say this, if I wasn't such a hound for information, I would not have found these boards. and my progression would not be this quick.

I do have a question on brackets. Is it really just the first X amount of people to click the fight button get put into the same league? Like my wife could be in with 9000+ veterens with 6 3*s?

There isn't a filter system to match players based on an aggregate score like (avg. hero level and/or collective amount of ISO)?

No, it is just first-come-first served. The system basically has to work this way or the initial joiners to brackets would just shoot up the rankings and shield while late comers to their appointed brackets would have no chance.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

@r0cky143 While its true she would be tossed into a bracket with some serious veterans she is only competing with them in the rankings, not who she is fighting. The point of MMR is to even that playing field so that people are matched up with teams at their strength level. So if she has one stars in the 25-30 level range she would be fighting them, not the 6x 141s. Its kind of the system you suggest would be more fair, but based more on win/loss vs opponent strength (and probably some other stuff tossed in).

As a tangent, when you hear people talking about tanking it is to lower that MMR so they are matched up with people from lower tiers. It is good to be a big fish among small ones.

Thanks for the clarifaction. That helps a bit. I just played in my first pvp tourney and i finished top 10. I guess what amazed me was the level of heroes i was facing by the end of it.

I had lvl 88 Wolverines 100+ Punishers.... characters 30+ my character level. I figured it was all in the same bracket until I tried to find their place in relation to mine, they weren't on the board.

I guess I just don't understand the methodology behind tanking. Obviously it works because i have seen multiple threads about it, but how can you then compete in the events when your heroes on timers? I mean it just seems completely unorthodox.

It's interesting how this transition has gone. And I can see where top level players are in dire need of the ISO over the covers.

Unknown

Moral wrote:

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.

My only maxed * is IM35 and that was quite a mistake to put the last 10+ levels into him. At least looks like that from afar. As we know it takes some serious levels to put into **s to pass the *.

DD-The-Mighty

IceIX wrote:

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.

Is this the same line of thought as to why they nerfed the 3* pvp rewards by pushing the other 2 3* covers into the top 10? Or is there something else were not seeing?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

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.

Don't you think there would be a lag between when you make a change and when you see the effects of the change? What people are doing right now with their 2*s is probably dictated with what happened a maybe three weeks ago. Wouldn't it take more time to see what the effects of the new PvP reward structure is?

IceIX

noknuckles wrote:

Don't you think there would be a lag between when you make a change and when you see the effects of the change? What people are doing right now with their 2*s is probably dictated with what happened a maybe three weeks ago. Wouldn't it take more time to see what the effects of the new PvP reward structure is?

We're not seeing the full effects of it yet, no. We're seeing a definite and unmistakable trend in all the identifiers and play patterns that we're looking at attached to the change though.

DD-The-Mighty

IceIX wrote:

noknuckles wrote:

Don't you think there would be a lag between when you make a change and when you see the effects of the change? What people are doing right now with their 2*s is probably dictated with what happened a maybe three weeks ago. Wouldn't it take more time to see what the effects of the new PvP reward structure is?

We're not seeing the full effects of it yet, no. We're seeing a definite and unmistakable trend in all the identifiers and play patterns that we're looking at attached to the change though.

Then ill take that as confirmation that you want to see the same max 2* before 3* trend that your aiming for with the 1-2*s...

Moral

IceIX wrote:

noknuckles wrote:

Don't you think there would be a lag between when you make a change and when you see the effects of the change? What people are doing right now with their 2*s is probably dictated with what happened a maybe three weeks ago. Wouldn't it take more time to see what the effects of the new PvP reward structure is?

We're not seeing the full effects of it yet, no. We're seeing a definite and unmistakable trend in all the identifiers and play patterns that we're looking at attached to the change though.

I'm curious how the gold star characters fit into this.

Gold Star Thor at 1-4-4 level 85 surpassed max marvel now 3-5-5 Thor in health and yellow/green damage for about 13k less ISO invested. I'm reasonably sure 3 red covers would have made it a clean sweep.

Combine this with over half my Juggernaut bracket's top10 having rosters making the 1-2 star transition. 1* teams seem very competitive in this event.

I skipped playing the 1*s beyond 35 because prenerfed Thor and Wolverine were better than the 1* characters at similar level and the covers readily available. Gold Thor looks to be the same sort of thing.

Unknown

r0cky143 wrote:

dlaw008 wrote:

The devs are right to use metrics to measure their changes. If they determined needed game changes based solely on forum response, the game would be ridiculous and still the forums would be unhappy.

I agree with this thought process. Metrics give you the data to make proper decisions.

Then I have to ask. How exactly did the devs arrive at the conclusion that characters like Thor, Wolverine, and the most recent Black Panther, needed to be "funbalanced"? Was it not because of forum response?

It could also be possible that they based their findings on overall popularity of usage. But if they are basing decisions solely on such statistical findings, shouldn't they have already done something about Moonstone and Captain America? They might even nerf OBW since she is so popular.

IceIX

mechgouki wrote:

r0cky143 wrote:

dlaw008 wrote:

The devs are right to use metrics to measure their changes. If they determined needed game changes based solely on forum response, the game would be ridiculous and still the forums would be unhappy.

I agree with this thought process. Metrics give you the data to make proper decisions.

Then I have to ask. How exactly did the devs arrive at the conclusion that characters like Thor, Wolverine, and the most recent Black Panther, needed to be "funbalanced"? Was it not because of forum response?

It could also be possible that they based their findings on overall popularity of usage. But if they are basing decisions solely on such statistical findings, shouldn't they have already done something about Moonstone and Captain America? They might even nerf OBW since she is so popular.

If you're really actually interested in our methodologies on that, watch this from the recent Steam Dev Days. It lays it out pretty well, and was amusing to me since I was sitting there ready to take notes at the conference when the presentation pretty much just validated our methodologies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwL6zh ... R9TeZWMPjm
If you're not in it for an hour long interesting watch, it basically comes down to: Data is great. Hunches and intuition are great. Feedback is great. Not one of them are valid on their own.