Where is the roster diversity?

grunth13

So, the devs keep talking about how roster diversity is good, but everything they do is reduce the chances of your using those characters. With the death of cc (not dead, but definitely wounded, and this is not about cc), I can only use 8 characters a day. I don't understand the point of having us keep 1 stars for dpq if we can't use them anywhere else. Trash all your 1 stars except 1 and save yourself 6k hp. Now I can't use my 2's for anything except dpq, so other than farming xp, there is no reason for them. So trash all of them except 3 and save yourself another 10k hp if you aren't farming them for xp. You can keep your 3's and 4's for now, but your 3's will be worthless soon too. Thats 13k hp of roster slots you will save by keeping the bare minimum. The reason I say this is WHAT"S THE POINT OF ROSTER DIVERSITY IF YOU CAN'T USE THEM. PVE is strictly about speed. If you want to place high, you will will never use your 1's and 2's against the trivial nodes because seconds count and people lose out on placement by 1 point in pve now. There is no point of the 2 star essential, because you are bringing your strongest characters to finish that node quickly. It is a blatant strong arm tactic to make you waste hp on your 2's. As for PVP, all I see are championed 5's, and will never be able to use my 4's against them until they hit like level 330+ (my highest is 318 so long way to go for that). Now I have been lucky with my oml/pho/ss and they are leveled well, but have had zero luck in the rest of 5's because my best covered is at 5 covers, so I can't use them against my mmr. So I can use my oml/pho/ss (only when I can't use the other2)/3 star for pvp/2star x3 for dpq/1star every day. THAT"S IT. I currently have 108 characters and I can only use 8...****!!! If this is the game you want, then get rid of all essentials and just let me use my fastest team every time so I don't have to scroll through my roster. I can save my hp for tokens and shields. If you want diveresity, let us use every bit of our roster how ever we choose, otherwise, stop with the contradictory messages.

Quebbster

Two-star farming is pretty dang awesome. I love not having to waste a cover, and it yields quite a bit of HP, CP and XP. I might start farming the threestars too once I get one to max level...

grunth13

Quebbster wrote:

Two-star farming is pretty dang awesome. I love not having to waste a cover, and it yields quite a bit of HP, CP and XP. I might start farming the threestars too once I get one to max level...

I have been doing it also, but honestly...to what point? The long game is lost on most of us. The developers keep changing the game. There are plenty of people who have parked their 2's at 144...to which I say again, to what point. You can only play with the same characters.

simonsez

grunth13 wrote:

There is no point of the 2 star essential, because you are bringing your strongest characters to finish that node quickly. It is a blatant strong arm tactic to make you waste hp on your 2's.

This is the second time this morning I've defended the devs over accusations of evil, by suggesting they're actually just clueless. I'm sure they're thrilled to have an advocate such as myself in their corner.

Seriously, they are so far removed from what goes on in high end PvE. They don't understand it's become a combination of drag race and chicken. The 2* essential is there because they don't understand this, and because this is the format that's always existed. It was fine with 2.5 timers, because PvE was about stamina, not speed. Now, it's a just a vestige of a dead format. But to be honest, I appreciate having an extra trivial node I can speed through.

I do agree that we desperately need incentives to encourage deeper roster use. So, I'll keep saying it: character usage bonuses, and new game modes with 5* lockouts and rotating buffs that do NOT include the top tier 4s.

Calnexin

I can't disagree. Once you have functional characters at a given tier, there's no gameplay reason to keep anyone from a lower tier other than essential nodes. Those, I presume, are only there to make sure you pay for a new slot rather than dump characters from the lower tiers to roster the new characters.

They are, however, quite necessary for the people starting. They're the ladder into upper echelons. They're kind of like the old baby albums sitting in your basement. You'll only pull it out once in awhile and it serves no practical purpose, but you can't bear to throw it out because it's part of your past.

The championing and cycling made the 3* and 2* tier worth something in the metagame, though. The guaranteed rewards for building champs are a stepping stone into the higher tiers. If you're already in the top tier you don't need them, but you can still use them. If you choose not to use them in that way, it makes way more sense to sell what you don't need and cycle the covers as necessary.

But I just realized I kind of missed the original point. I'm not nearly at the top but I'm going through the same thing. Every match is OML, Thor, and either a featured 3*, Switch, or KK (color usage). I have no reason to use anyone else unless I can't because of a heroic event or I run out of health packs (which never happens because OML almost always heals all the significant damage). I was hoping clearance levels would include some sort of tier limit - enter an event and you can only use up to a certain star level.

Quebbster

grunth13 wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Two-star farming is pretty dang awesome. I love not having to waste a cover, and it yields quite a bit of HP, CP and XP. I might start farming the threestars too once I get one to max level...

I have been doing it also, but honestly...to what point? The long game is lost on most of us. The developers keep changing the game. There are plenty of people who have parked their 2's at 144...to which I say again, to what point. You can only play with the same characters.

Let me put it this way: After the last run of Civil War I had less than 1000 HP banked. Now I am up to a bit over 5000 HP without adjusting my spending habits. I mostly thank my two-star farm for that influx, and it allows me to spend HP on token packs to keep the hamster Wheel spinning.

Cdubb1975

I would like an event, kind of like gauntlet, where at one stage/set of missions you can only use 1*, next stage 2*, and so on.

Kojubat

I agree that this tends to be the case in regular events.

However, I find it amusing that this was posted as a Heroic event is running, the only style event that encourages roster diversity. (Balance of Power allows for it, but doesn't necessarily handicap anyone with a small roster.) Granted, the like/dislike percentages are heavily skewed towards dislike when it comes to Heroics among veteran players.

Whether or not any particular player wants to play it, the fact remains that it exists, it regularly appears in the event cycle, it has rewards, and your success odds increase with more characters in the restricted roster.

westnyy2

As a fellow vet I agree 100%. Yes I cycle my 2's and soon I'll be at that point with my 3's. Yes, I have several champ 5's. Yes, I have most of the 4's champed. Yes, I hardly use any of them.

In D3's defense, a lot of changes have happened over the last several weeks and most of them have been positive so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. It would be cool to at least have a daily challenge list that awards XP for challenges completed.

Win a match with 10 special tiles on the board +10xp

Play 3 matches with Hawkeye on your team +10xp

Win a match with only FF members +20xp

I am holding out hope a new mode will be introduced shortly. Whether or note this node allows you more diversity in your character selection is anyone's guess.

I'm not concerned about the 1, 2 or 3 stars. I've used them a lot over time and choose to keep them due to my OCD about having them all. It does strike a nerve that due to having several champ 5's I rarely get to use my 4's. That would be my #1 wish.

TML

Likely would never happen, but this is where I'd love to see a new achievement-based game mode where either you choose a set of characters based on a certain set of criteria (2* only, only women, whatever), or the match chooses characters for you. The higher the difficulty, the greater the reward. You could have matches where you only get a certain number of turns, you can't use powers, you name it. Lots of potential there I think and it would make the game a bit more puzzle-y, which is lacking these days.

TML

westnyy2 wrote:

As a fellow vet I agree 100%. Yes I cycle my 2's and soon I'll be at that point with my 3's. Yes, I have several champ 5's. Yes, I have most of the 4's champed. Yes, I hardly use any of them.

In D3's defense, a lot of changes have happened over the last several weeks and most of them have been positive so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. It would be cool to at least have a daily challenge list that awards XP for challenges completed.

Win a match with 10 special tiles on the board +10xp

Play 3 matches with Hawkeye on your team +10xp

Win a match with only FF members +20xp

I am holding out hope a new mode will be introduced shortly. Whether or note this node allows you more diversity in your character selection is anyone's guess.

I'm not concerned about the 1, 2 or 3 stars. I've used them a lot over time and choose to keep them due to my OCD about having them all. It does strike a nerve that due to having several champ 5's I rarely get to use my 4's. That would be my #1 wish.

Well, how's that for timing.

tanis3303

I'm kind of on the fence about this topic, but I think that's because I'm in a sweet spot when it comes to roster development. I use more characters than ever before nowadays, thanks to my growing stock of champed 4*s and weekly boosts. Seems that each new boost week I'm running new characters, and I often find myself with all 4 of the boosted 4*s in good shape, which provides me some new strategies to test out pretty regularly. On the other hand, in order to allow for this, I have had to soft cap my 5*s, so I'm playing one star level below my actual place in the game. PHX is fully covered, and Logan and Surfer are short one cover. My original plan for my roster was to take all 3 to max level once they were all fully covered, but honestly I don't think I'm going to do it now. The 4*s (most of them anyway) when boosted are wrecking balls, and even ones I didn't like like X-23 and Drax are proving to be a lot of fun to use and discover new combos with (Drax + Antman for instance ). Capping my 5*s at 360 has also allowed me to use 3* support characters in PvE for even more interesting combinations, as the scaling remains reasonable-ish.

So for me, I'm experiencing a pretty sweet spot in regards to roster diversity, which has been really neat. But I'm doing it at the expense of experiencing the "end game" content of 5*s, because via the awkward MMR/Scaling equations, leveling them up completely ruins said roster diversity...and that kinda sucks

mckauhu

I never level 5*'s and that's how I keep my roster diversity. I can even use 2*'s when they are boosted. In a average day I use 20-30 different characters a day. Doesn't matter if it's PvP or PvE I still get to use multiple teams because different line ups is working vs certain characters

broll

mckauhu wrote:

I never level 5*'s and that's how I keep my roster diversity. I can even use 2*'s when they are boosted. In a average day I use 20-30 different characters a day. Doesn't matter if it's PvP or PvE I still get to use multiple teams because different line ups is working vs certain characters

Simular to this, I'm nearing the end of my 3* climb and will soon be in the transition to 4* (currently 26/40 3* champed, most remaining 3* are 11+ covers). I'm toying with the idea of only leveling my 4* to a point they are not higher than my highest 3* to keep everyone in the same level for both scaling and diversity. If I choose to do this I would do this by intentionally hording all CP and LT until I reach a point where my 3* are at or near max champ level. Another thing I may do if I choose this route is to play under my max CL to lessen the influx of 4* covers.

I'm on the fence as to whether or not to go this route or not. It would definitely slow down my overall progress, but is that a bad thing if makes the game more fun/less grindy?

GrumpySmurf1002

aesthetocyst wrote:

They want the whole playerbase to competing directly, rather than tiering events or having rarity-themed events, which lead to weekly buffs to make each tier competitive with the next highest.

But tiering events is just more lipstick PvP pig. As was already said, speed > diversity with PvP, so there's nothing that can be really done there. We already saw with Balance of Power - even with everyone "equal", team diversity devolved quickly into just a handful of teams (nearly all of whom centered around IM40).

aesthetocyst wrote:

In PVE this "weekly diversity" might not be so bad, it feels like you're changing up teams, but in PVP it's pretty terrible, playing agains the same AI running the same lineups, over and over.

When you think about it, PvP should be best on best. Sure there are some rock-paper-scissors arguments to be add about strength, but having your best lineup is always kinda the goal.

PvE is where the diversity should happen. Get rid of placement once and for all. Create nodes with locked characters, more essentials, win conditions (get 10 special tiles, no red tiles, etc), lose conditions (3 enemy countdowns launch, etc). If you really must continue with placement rewards, have it based on a 'score' of how you beat the nodes, not when.

Of course, if you ask most players, their least favorite events are the Heroics, which of course is where having a diverse roster helps the most. So I'm not there that would go anywhere anyway. However, that's where the window is open.

Polares

Variable difficulty for PvE dependent on the team used

I think that it would help A LOT if the level of your enemies in PvE was dependent just on the team you used in that node. There can be a minimum level so no strange cheats are used, but I think that would make PvE much more fun.

So If use my 450 level 5s the enemies are 430, If use three buffed and champed 4s then my enemies are 330. One 260 level 3, one 270 level 4 and a 450 level 5? Then enemies level 300. Etc, etc.

This would be really easy to implement for the Devs and it would make almost ALL your roster usable in PvE.

Stax the Foyer

Kojubat wrote:

I agree that this tends to be the case in regular events.

However, I find it amusing that this was posted as a Heroic event is running, the only style event that encourages roster diversity. (Balance of Power allows for it, but doesn't necessarily handicap anyone with a small roster.) Granted, the like/dislike percentages are heavily skewed towards dislike when it comes to Heroics among veteran players.

Whether or not any particular player wants to play it, the fact remains that it exists, it regularly appears in the event cycle, it has rewards, and your success odds increase with more characters in the restricted roster.

A heroic-style event with most of your team locked out has the potential to be good, if the available characters are chosen with any semblance of synergy. Sometimes you get lucky and there are good teams available in a heroic event. Many times, there are not.

FaustianDeal

There is a semi-valid point to this argument. And it aligns nicely with other comparisons about the nonsensical uniformity in the loot drops.

PVP matches drop the same rewards whether you are fighting a seed team or champed 5s. That doesn't make much sense.
PVE nodes drop the same rewards whether you are running 2* Thorverine against level 60 enemies or running champed 5s against level 600 enemies. Again, little sense.

Look at how dungeon-crawler games work. The early dungeons are populated with weaker opponents and loot tends to be common loot and meager coin. As the player progresses to harder dungeons enemies get tougher, but loot also improves; gear becomes rarer in class and coin goes way up. Why can't MPQ be more like this? I applaud the recent introduction of SHIELD Clearance Levels. That suggests recognition of the validity of this comparison. I would encourage them to extend this deeper to also affect PVE node rewards and PVP match prizes.

The same is arguably true for our rosters. If you view characters as inventory, what is the point of wasting inventory slots on "common" or "uncommon" gear when you have progressed to the point where you have a full set of "rare" gear and a few of the "legendary" pieces are starting to pop up in your dungeons? Those "common" gear pieces are just clogging your inventory till you get back to town to sell them.

SnowcaTT

I've long complained about roster diversity (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=45391#p529988), it is just awful. For lots of reasons, but tight MMR makes it worse for everyone - then you only see a few teams over and over.

One of my first original posts here was when I was going from 2* -> 3* transition, and I was trying to put in suggestions to fix it even then. Many that have been promoted here - give ISO (or now XP, or both!) to promote roster diversity. +10 ISO for every different character you play in a given day...can you imagine? Different! Diversity! Dandy (for alliteration)! The 3D's for D3.

simonsez

Kojubat wrote:

However, I find it amusing that this was posted as a Heroic event is running, the only style event that encourages roster diversity.

Well, so far I've mostly been relying on Fist and GT, which doesn't make this Heroic feel like much of a change from what I've been doing for the past week...