Revisiting Prestige Characters

ErikPeter

A couple years ago a few of the 3-star characters were labeled GOLD instead of RARE. The distinction was basically pointless and just confused people. However, I think it's time we look back on the original idea behind gold characters and see if there's not something we can use there.

We've reached 40 4-star characters. The token odds are going to get worse and worse from here on out.

So, my suggestion is to revisit the "prestige characters" idea for some new 4-star characters. Basically, a new updated version of a character could be released, but NOT put into the token pool. Instead, these characters become event rewards--for placement or higher Clearance Level progression ONLY. Basically they're strong new options, but only available for the top tier players. Normal players wouldn't randomly get stuck with a singleton cover.

Considerations

• Gold characters shouldn't be new to the game; You don't want to alienate (non-expert) fans who have been waiting on their favorite character.
• In which case, Golds could be boosted when their original (lower-star) versions are boosted, simplifying the event structure as well as making them even more desirable, e.g., for use in Heroic PvE.
• Golds can be 20% better than their tier. They should be more-usable alongside upper tier characters. I'm suggesting 4-star characters designed to support 2 five-stars when champed, especially when boosted. But having a featured Gold would benefit even someone still in the 3-4 transition.
• As such, Golds need utility beyond their tier, focusing on characters with self-acceleration or strong defenses.
• The first Golds could be 4-star reworks of the better 3-star characters. E.g. 4-star versions of 3-Cyc and Kamala Khan, but also niche characters who would be very strong if they had more HP, like Blade, Doc Ock. Even more fun would be strong 4- versions of 2-star Storm and Hawkeye, or 1-star Spider-Man.
• Golds would cost less to cover with CP, to allow exper players to get them to champion level faster than normal once the basics are earned. I'd peg this at 60 CP.
• Which color cover you get upon earning a Gold could be awarded randomly, adding a luck aspect to acquiring them (since they don't come from tokens); or "Gold" tokens could be earned, with their own claim screen (a la elite tokens), to let the player choose which Gold character they want pull a random cover for. This would be great as it allows characters to focus on the Gold character that would help their roster the most, and add much-needed choice to the late-game progression.
• Since assets exist for these characters already, once they are upgraded with damage and minor tweaks (like the differences between 1&3 Storm and 2&3 Cap), they could be released in batches a few at a time. Once most of the elite players have already obtained fully-covered golds the old batches can be lumped into 'classic legends' style pools.

To sum up:

• Gold characters are strong, 4-tier versions of existing 1-to-3-tier characters, aimed at expert players.
• They can't be bought, only earned, but once rostered their powers can be trained up at half-normal CP cost.
• Gold characters re-use existing assets, but bring 'old' mechanics into higher tiers to expand roster options for hardcore players.
• If you don't like re-using the "Gold" classification, call them "Prestige" characters instead.

ErikPeter

Here's an ugly mockup of what a token redemption screen could look like. I.e. If the player had 2 tokens they could pick one to get a random cover in. .

Regarding powers, besides dealing a lot of extra damage, they would be given minor tweaks to be extra desirable/usable. Like how 3* Hailstorm costs 9 instead of 10, and 3* Peacemaker creates a Protect tile. E.g. 4* Doctor Octopus's Armed and Dangerous could be only 9 AP and affect more special tiles.

4* Hawkeye's stun could last longer and create blue tiles (to accelerate more stuns and hope to trigger Speed Shot.) And/or his big red AoE countdown could start fortified.

4* Moonstone's purple could swap any 2 tiles from the get-go and always deal damage. Her Black could steal Attack/Protect/Strike from level 1 or create strike tiles if there are none to steal.

And so on.

GurlBYE

So you want an idea that introduces new characters of an upper tier and essentially locks people who aren't in that tier yet from getting the rewards?

Nah, gonna pass on that.

Placement rewards are just about exclusively for whales pve or pvp wise.

Faster clears in pve
stronger teams in pvp.

Also the game has too many characters not featured to need this IMO.

ErikPeter

GurlBYE wrote:

So you want an idea that introduces new characters of an upper tier and essentially locks people who aren't in that tier yet from getting the rewards?

Yeah, basically. They'd be out of sight, out of mind for players with developing rosters, because who needs a cover or two for some higher-level copy of a character they already have? But if tweaked properly, they'd be a nice juicy incentive for expert players.

Placement is a pain. Maybe it's not the right way to reward these. But I think once Clearance Levels 8-10 open up this could be a way to make people choose their CL more carefully. Maybe instead they could just make these covers available to purchase with CP (random draws) for anyone SR 50+. Or a new kind of token. Thinking about it, that's pretty close to ideal.

Here's my rationale: Progress becomes a lottery. Adding more 4-stars guarantees more usable pulls, but slows overall progress. Each new 5-star they add makes it harder to attain the desired 6-or-so covers you want to have a viable one. Adding Prestige characters could let people get some advancement when the whims of the RNG aren't on their side.

Case in point, my buddy recently spent 875CP worth of LT and got just 2 5-star covers. He's already got most of the 4s cover maxed so 2/3 of his 4-covers get burned for ISO. His roster hardly improved, but by the time he saves that up again, the Latest Legends will be different. If instead, he could have spent that on maxing a 4-and-a-half-star character that he knows will be competitive, that huge expenditure would've actually provided noticeable progress.

Also, reintroducing lower-tier powers into T4+ could mix up the meta without requiring players to learn anything new. You see Storm (Classic) and you remember to take care of her before she gets out of hand (especially if she's level 275). Moonstone will steal your tiles and blast you with Red. Doc Ock will punish your special tiles. You know these things, it's just the numbers are higher so as to be relevant. And really, it's an excuse to use FUN mechanics from the lower tiers again without having to just recycle them in new characters which would be a drag. 1-star Spider-man as a 4-star? Hell yeah, gimme now!

dsds

I remember a thread where we were discussing the probability that the developers were on the forums throwing out ideas to see what kind feedback they get. For some reason this thread reminds me of that old thread. But just in case you are a developer, I want to point out that this idea is a horrible idea. We do not need more of the same characters, I am happy with my 106 slots. I do not want to have 212 slots. I want more original content, not clones with minor tweaks, that is just plain lazy.

ErikPeter

OK. What if there was some thing you could earn to permanently upgrade an existing, low-tier character in your roster to an improved 4-star like I'm describing above? Some kind of mega ISO or Infinity Stone. Doesn't take any slots but you only get one...

...I hate that idea because we'd just have an army of 4-star IM40s to fight. But if there were limits. I guess I'll have to go back to my old Infinity Stone suggestion--if I ever ended up posting it.

Basically there'd be 6 Infinity Stones to earn, each one corresponding to a color. You could attach one or more to a character of your choice, and their power of the matching color would level up +1, effectively to rank 6 out of 5. For lower tier characters (like 1 Spidey or 2-Storm) each infinity stone would instead increase their effective tier by 1. So i.e. you could make a two-star (roughly comparable to) a 5-star at the cost of 3 infinity stones, one in each power.

So it's kind of a poor-mans upgrade, but still pretty cool. Especially with the added effects of a level 6 power (more tiles destroyed, an additional strike tile created, whatever works without borking the game completely... This part would take a bit of careful consideration so they don't blow up the world. It could really just aim for like 10% better effectiveness than level 5 and still be pretty sweet.)

Of course those would be hard to earn and you'd only ever get one of each at most, so while it'd be fun to boost lower-tier guys, they'd probably be better used to make your top-tier characters stronger. 7500 season reward in PvP (one per season) or something like that could be enough to make them limited, but not unattainable for determined players. If they were difficult to respec/reassign (maybe a CP expenditure, with seasonal freespecs) people would be encouraged to choose carefully who they want to power up.

In PvP, Infinity Stone characters would actually just have a graphic over their portrait showing which powers are powered up (like a power-up crystal you typically see, but in different colors), so you'd know what you were getting into before a battle.