How to balance the game...

bbigler

Since we all want this game to improve by voicing our concerns on this forum, I wanted people to realize that certain requests made here would put the game further out of balance. I believe we should spend our time trying to fix things that are out-of-balance. The obvious balance issue is ISO vs Cover distribution, but it's more complicated than that. Let's look at some hypothetical situations:

1. They make it easier to acquire 4* covers: this would initially make people happy until they realize that they don't have the ISO to champ all their maxed covered 4*s. The good thing is that people could choose to champ only the best characters, which also means that some characters may never get champed. Over time, everyone would be playing the same teams in PvP since everyone would only champ the best characters. That would get boring, and variety makes a good game. Plus, everyone would complain more about ISO deficiencies.

2. They increase ISO rewards for higher SCLs: this would allow people to level up their 4* and 5* characters as fast as they receive covers for them, thus increasing their character options for battles, which gives more team combinations, thus making it more fun to play. Since we all think there's a general ISO deficiency in the game, I would say this is out-of-balance. Another way to fix this is by simply reducing the overall ISO cost to level up characters.

3. They introduce colorless covers or maxed color options: this would make everyone very happy as covers wouldn't go to waste, but this would also add to the overall ISO deficiency of the game. It would certainly help the random nature of getting covers, but it would add to your ISO needs as well. I think this change should happen, but ISO rewards are a bigger issue.

4. They make it easier to acquire 5* covers: again, this would initially make people happy until everyone in the game is fighting with 5* rosters. If it was easier to get 5* covers, then players would spend a lot of their ISO on 5*s and bypass the majority of their lower tier characters. Instead of progressing one tier at a time, they could fully cover 5*s before they're finished covering and leveling up lower tier characters. But do we need to champ all characters? I suppose not, but I think players should "pay their dues" in each tier before being able to move up. Getting 5* covers right now is very slow, but by the time you're "done" champing 4*s, you should have enough 5* covers to start leveling them up. Nevertheless, once you're focus is on 5*s, your progress gets very slow, which ruins the reason for playing the game. Perhaps this was intentional by the devs so that people can "catch up" with players that use 5*s, OR they don't want their biggest buyers to leave because they're "done".

5. They reduce the CP cost to buy a specific cover: this seems like a reasonable request, but I understand their reasoning: 20 CP for a random 4* cover (1 out of 126 covers) or 120 CP for a specific one; that's actually a good deal when you consider the odds. Since your odds of getting a 5* cover in an LT is around 1 out of 6, thus being 6 times harder, the CP cost for a specific 5* cover (720 CP) is 6 times the 4* cover rate (120 CP). I think their intent was to have players open tokens until they get most of the covers in a tier, and then start purchasing covers specifically for the higher cost. But, if it was easier to get these covers, your ISO needs increase as well.

6. They reduce the HP cost of vaults and tokens: this would certainly hurt their revenue, but getting more covers seems great until you realize your ISO deficiency. If we get to a point where we generally have more ISO than we need, then we can start talking about better ways to get covers.

7. They reduce the number of missions or nodes in PvE: this seems appealing as PvE can be a real burnout, but what would happen if it took half of the time it takes now? Well, then almost everyone would complete all nodes and missions, so there would be little point difference between 1st place and 100th place. It would still come down to a grind for placement rewards. I think the solution to the grind is to remove the placement rewards altogether and increase the progression and mission rewards. This way everyone can play at their own pace and not plan their life around the event. The purpose of PvE would be to win some nice rewards while trying out different kinds of teams, all at a time convenient to you.

8. They reduce the frequency of character releases: this would certainly be a relief to everyone as we can hardly keep up with rostering, covering and leveling up new characters. From what I've read on this forum, it takes players about 2 weeks to champ a 4* once all covers are collected (which is true for me as well). Since they release a new character every 2 weeks, this seems like a fair rate of release, but it certainly feels like too much. If the rate was slower, then the dilution rate in the token pools slows down too, giving us a better chance to cover the new characters we already have. So yes, the current release schedule looks like it's out-of-balance. It also seems ridiculous that any new 4* character released now will be effectively useless for 6 to 12 months until enough covers are collected for them. Plus, I have to spend HP to roster them, which I don't think is fair. It feels more like a penalty than a reward when a new character is released: I have to spend 1000 HP to roster them, then use my new level 70 char repeatedly in difficult PvE battles and then add them to my long list of characters to collect and champ.

***Since this is a long list, feel free to only respond to one of these hypothetical situations, and thanks for reading***

smkspy

More covers would necessitate that devs put more thought into character releases to make each one desirable rather than just cranking them out every two weeks and with the hope that one becomes the next Iceman or Peggy.

And even if we increase iso, it still doesn't address the cover shortage as more and more new releases dilute the draw pool, and then we will have a situation where vets and diehards have iso but the casual player looking to see roster progress doesn't benefit when they hit that 4 star wall.

I would also add the moral boost from getting covers and better tokens/vaults. I think it's to live with an iso shortage than it is to live with 9-15 poorly covered 4 stars staring in your roster.

And scl has consistently proven to be a poorly thought out bandaid. I see no reason that rank 9 and 10 will address the problem when rank 8 was such a troll job.

didn't read it all, but those were my thoughts after reading your first couple of "you need to consider" suggestions.

HaywireII

I feel like they are making some positive progress on the ISO front with Clearance Levels and Shield Intercepts. I'm looking back over my roster notes and I've championed six 4* characters in the last 39 days. That's with playing Story mode, Versus mode and Lighting Rounds so there is a bit of effort but it's much faster than the release rate of new 4* characters.

Shmoe50

I dislike the idea of shortening the PvE - some of us only play for the PvE, and do very little playing in the PvP. I think the current balance is good for PvE players and the PvP players - although I recognize it could be a bit mutch for someone trying to do both.

xidragonxi

I think the game is in a pretty good spot right now in terms of ISO availability. I'm able to champion a 4* character about every 2 weeks. I'm even at a point now where I'm going back to finish championing some old 3*s while I wait for covers for more desirable 4*s to come through.

At a certain point I'll want to level more of my 5*s and that's going to be an ISO crunch, for sure.

Crnch73

I have zero champed 4*, but because all my 3* are champed, I have nothing to really spend ISO on. Therefore, I have almost 1 million ISO and nothing to spend it on. I know I am not the only one like this, and yet I know there are also plenty of people with the opposite problem. Hell, if I could just get some specific covers, I would have an ISO shortage as I tried to champ my 4*.

To me, the problem lies in the means to advance... period. Whether you get screwed by bad RNG, repeated colors that are maxed, bad vaults, etc. Or if you get screwed because RNG has been great to you but ISO can never truly keep up if RNG was great.

If you want to get from 2* to 3*, it can be a daunting task to a 2* player, but obviously doable over time. For me, getting out of 3* land has been taking forever and I still have both feet firmly planted there no matter how badly I try to make the jump. When you get to a certain point, you need a better roster to get better rewards, but you can't get a better roster WITHOUT those better rewards. Higher placement requires a better roster, but a better roster is very hard to come by right now without getting higher placement rewards. 25CP can accidentally turn into a 6th cover in a specific color of a 4* with zero covers in other colors. That is bad, because you just wasted all that time saving 20-25CP. If you somehow arrive at 13 covers for someone worth having, and you are relatively unscathed... you probably have an ISO shortage. Murphy's law is legit in this game. I love that this game has longevity, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get anywhere. I bet more people stop playing this game because it became tedious, than people who reached the "end game". That tells you that this game isn't too easy, but rather that it makes things hard when they shouldn't be that way.

How about a slightly easy idea? Your rewards/chances are based on your Shield Level (not SCL). I am currently level 61, so not super high but not anywhere near a noob. Getting repeated 2* characters from every non-LT token pull is ridiculous. Elite, event tokens, heroics, taco vaults... I get 2* from token pulls near 90%. The odds should be higher for me right now to get a 3 or 4*, because that is what my roster needs. and then 2* could be at higher rates in the standard token pulls. Same with ISO. 70 ISO rewards are a joke. I don't really notice anything under 500 ISO. however, lower shield leveled players can certainly benefit from 200 ISO rewards. This way, if the difficulty of opponents scales upwards with your roster, so do your rewards. Why is it that the people who require more resources are getting the same rates of pulls as people who are starving for 2* players?

Dormammu

I'm in the same boat. SHIELD level 61 and just last week I finished champing all the 3-stars (including Dr. Strange). I only have two fully-covered 4-stars (and one of those is Devil Dino who I probably won't level), the rest range in-between 1-12 covers with most of them not worth any iso investment yet.

But I'm not frustrated at all.

I have every single 3-star champed! I'm loving this game. My roster is the most efficient its ever been against my PVE scaling. No matter which 3-star is buffed, I got em champed. I have total diversity within my scaling tier.

With the amount I play, which can be as little as 10 minutes a day (DDQ and done) to 2.5 hours a day (hitting PVE hard) I get around 20 4-star covers a month from progress rewards, tokens, champ rewards, and CP cash-ins. That's a pretty good clip for that level of rarity. If I ever got obsessed and took PVP seriously I could probably double that.

So I have to disagree. I don't see the transition as being a near-insurmountable rage-fest. I'm not worried about the covers. They'll come. I'm far more worried about all that iso I'm going to need to champ em all.

bbigler

Crnch73 wrote:

I have zero champed 4*, but because all my 3* are champed, I have nothing to really spend ISO on. Therefore, I have almost 1 million ISO and nothing to spend it on. I know I am not the only one like this, and yet I know there are also plenty of people with the opposite problem. Hell, if I could just get some specific covers, I would have an ISO shortage as I tried to champ my 4*.

To me, the problem lies in the means to advance... period. Whether you get screwed by bad RNG, repeated colors that are maxed, bad vaults, etc. Or if you get screwed because RNG has been great to you but ISO can never truly keep up if RNG was great.

If you want to get from 2* to 3*, it can be a daunting task to a 2* player, but obviously doable over time. For me, getting out of 3* land has been taking forever and I still have both feet firmly planted there no matter how badly I try to make the jump. When you get to a certain point, you need a better roster to get better rewards, but you can't get a better roster WITHOUT those better rewards. Higher placement requires a better roster, but a better roster is very hard to come by right now without getting higher placement rewards. 25CP can accidentally turn into a 6th cover in a specific color of a 4* with zero covers in other colors. That is bad, because you just wasted all that time saving 20-25CP. If you somehow arrive at 13 covers for someone worth having, and you are relatively unscathed... you probably have an ISO shortage. Murphy's law is legit in this game. I love that this game has longevity, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get anywhere. I bet more people stop playing this game because it became tedious, than people who reached the "end game". That tells you that this game isn't too easy, but rather that it makes things hard when they shouldn't be that way.

How about a slightly easy idea? Your rewards/chances are based on your Shield Level (not SCL). I am currently level 61, so not super high but not anywhere near a noob. Getting repeated 2* characters from every non-LT token pull is ridiculous. Elite, event tokens, heroics, taco vaults... I get 2* from token pulls near 90%. The odds should be higher for me right now to get a 3 or 4*, because that is what my roster needs. and then 2* could be at higher rates in the standard token pulls. Same with ISO. 70 ISO rewards are a joke. I don't really notice anything under 500 ISO. however, lower shield leveled players can certainly benefit from 200 ISO rewards. This way, if the difficulty of opponents scales upwards with your roster, so do your rewards. Why is it that the people who require more resources are getting the same rates of pulls as people who are starving for 2* players?

I'm also at Shield Level 61 with 553 days played. I have 2 Champed 4*s, but more importantly, I have a 4* Champing assembly line, which is only limited by my daily ISO gains. 6 weeks ago, I used to open every LT I got and buy Classic Legend tokens whenever I had 20+ CP. Back then, I was gaining about 10 x 4* covers a week and my 4* ISO deficiency kept growing past 1 million. So, I stopped buying Classic Legend tokens and starting hoarding LTs in order to work down the ISO deficiency. I've continued to get 4* covers from PvE events, vaults, champion rewards and heroic tokens though. I'm still working down my ISO deficiency so that I can start slowly opening Classic Legend tokens again. My point is (without hoarding) my ISO gains cannot meet my 4* ISO needs. And that's just my 4* tier! My 5* tier has gotten zero ISO and I still have some 3*s that aren't close to being champed yet.

smkspy

Your shield level doesn't reflect your roster strength though...I'm level 68 (started at level 52, I think) and on day 530. Between hitting every node 6 times in most pves and the 2 and 3 star farm, the leveling up system doesn't really reflect the growth of my roster.

I'm iso starved right now because I have a 2 star farm though, and because I advance my roster in the game. And that's the way it should be. GF is sitting on piles of iso and has nothing to do with it. "Well play more" is the obvious response, but obviously the way we play here and the way an average person wants to are completely different.

But the thing here is that because we play so hard and invest so much time that we deep down don't really want casual players to have nice things without the same grueling experience or the same fanatical zeal like becoming alliance commanders, spread sheeting our token pulls, or stat analysis of iso history.

Edit: And I just don't see my 3 star farm as a legit 4 star method of development. At least not in the way that 2 stars supply their 3 stars. I'm just hitting over 200 with my Hulk and several high 190 3s. About ten or so have just hit 183 so I've gotten those 4 covers, but the rest average 179-174. After all my 3s hit 183, it's gonna be a long time before the next 4 star cover. That's not a dependable method of looking at 4 star growth. Maybe if 3 star rewards were more like 2 star rewards, sure, but not at the current rate that I draw over 41 threes.

bbigler

smkspy wrote:

Your shield level doesn't reflect your roster strength though...I'm level 68 (started at level 52, I think) and on day 530. Between hitting every node 6 times in most pves and the 2 and 3 star farm, the leveling up system doesn't really reflect the growth of my roster.

I'm iso starved right now because I have a 2 star farm though, and because I advance my roster in the game. And that's the way it should be. GF is sitting on piles of iso and has nothing to do with it. "Well play more" is the obvious response, but obviously the way we play here and the way an average person wants to are completely different.

But the thing here is that because we play so hard and invest so much time that we deep down don't really want casual players to have nice things without the same grueling experience or the same fanatical zeal like becoming alliance commanders, spread sheeting our token pulls, or stat analysis of iso history.

Edit: And I just don't see my 3 star farm as a legit 4 star method of development. At least not in the way that 2 stars supply their 3 stars. I'm just hitting over 200 with my Hulk and several high 190 3s. About ten or so have just hit 183 so I've gotten those 4 covers, but the rest average 179-174. After all my 3s hit 183, it's gonna be a long time before the next 4 star cover. That's not a dependable method of looking at 4 star growth. Maybe if 3 star rewards were more like 2 star rewards, sure, but not at the current rate that I draw over 41 threes.

Perhaps this will help, I used to get 10 x 4* covers a week, here's the weekly breakdown:

PvE Progression rewards: 1 - 2 covers
Heroic Tokens & Vaults: 2 - 3 covers
Buying Classic Legend tokens with CP: 4 - 6 covers
DDQ Crash of Titans: 1 cover

smkspy

bbigler wrote:

we play here and the way an average person wants to are completely different...

Perhaps this will help, I used to get 10 x 4* covers a week, here's the weekly breakdown:

PvE Progression rewards: 1 - 2 covers
Heroic Tokens & Vaults: 2 - 3 covers
Buying Classic Legend tokens with CP: 4 - 6 covers
DDQ Crash of Titans: 1 cover

Phone reply, so poor edit job. You essentially prove my point. We play much harder to get those covers. But let's breakdown your token pull...

Pve progression-1-2 covers mean you're placing in the top 10...congrats on being part of the 10 percent that relentlessly grind the hamster wheel of pve. And it is a grind as someone that does 6 clears and wears down points to 1 and barely break scores in the top 50.

Heroic tokens and vault- entirely rng luck.

Lts- 4-6 a week. Yeah, this again means that you are a fanatical player to pull 80-120 cp per week.

crash- heavily influenced by the above and it benefits the established player more than the developing player. I can beat most clashes too on average, but this is the key point here

This discussion shouldn't be about how we, the fanatical, improve our rosters, but how the average player that can't devote themselves religiously to the game develop. How they have incentive to keep playing without hitting a wall that punishes them for not being that fanatical player. The "play more" is easy when we say it, it another thing for the average player that will easily move on to other pusuits when they stall out.

peteer01

How to balance the game:

Stop beta testing code on players.
Replace support with people who are interested in helping and have the power to provide items that are lost or withheld due to bugs.
Tweak alliance rewards so that you earn an "alliance award" based on the better of the two: Your own performance, relative to others, or your alliance'a performance, relative to other alliances.

Those would all be huge. The first two are wishful thinking though.

StarScream

How about balancing PvP? I have no five stars, two one cover four stars, many undercovered three stars and only four champed two stars. Yet, I still draw teams with maxed three stars, along with four stars and five stars. The iso I waste looking for the handful of matches I can even think of winning outweighs what I get as a reward.

On top of that, when I do win matches, the aftermath is nothing but a bunch of attacks where I lose.

What kind of Gump came up with this design?

SnowcaTT

Go back to before 5*'s and Champions existed, so some semblance of "parity" could exist without extreme buyers.

At the very least, remove True Healing from Certain Character so PVP/PVE isn't basically a zero health-pack proposition. Doesn't look like they'll do that before the 2xp per PVP match though....

cyineedsn

smkspy wrote:

bbigler wrote:

we play here and the way an average person wants to are completely different...

Perhaps this will help, I used to get 10 x 4* covers a week, here's the weekly breakdown:

PvE Progression rewards: 1 - 2 covers
Heroic Tokens & Vaults: 2 - 3 covers
Buying Classic Legend tokens with CP: 4 - 6 covers
DDQ Crash of Titans: 1 cover

Phone reply, so poor edit job. You essentially prove my point. We play much harder to get those covers. But let's breakdown your token pull...

Pve progression-1-2 covers mean you're placing in the top 10...congrats on being part of the 10 percent that relentlessly grind the hamster wheel of pve. And it is a grind as someone that does 6 clears and wears down points to 1 and barely break scores in the top 50.

Heroic tokens and vault- entirely rng luck.

Lts- 4-6 a week. Yeah, this again means that you are a fanatical player to pull 80-120 cp per week.

crash- heavily influenced by the above and it benefits the established player more than the developing player. I can beat most clashes too on average, but this is the key point here

This discussion shouldn't be about how we, the fanatical, improve our rosters, but how the average player that can't devote themselves religiously to the game develop. How they have incentive to keep playing without hitting a wall that punishes them for not being that fanatical player. The "play more" is easy when we say it, it another thing for the average player that will easily move on to other pusuits when they stall out.

Uh...what? PVE max progression is not even in the remote neighborhood of top 10 placement. And 4 classic tokens a week is basically max progression from 2 PVEs, and getting to 575 in the 3 pvps, 50 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 80/4 classic tokens. That's dedicated play, but it's way below hardcore/fanatic level.

DrDevilDinosaur

How to balance the game:

it's only three characters, and you only take one into battle
you don't get to see a preview of your opponent
character 1 always beats character 2
character 2 always beats character 3
character 3 always beats character 1

now the game is balanced

GurlBYE

People always tell me I don't want 4 star covers because I won't have the iso to champ them all.

Iso is an inevitability,

4 star covers are RNG.

Is all i have to say to that Idea.

smkspy

cyineedsn wrote:

Uh...what? PVE max progression is not even in the remote neighborhood of top 10 placement. And 4 classic tokens a week is basically max progression from 2 PVEs, and getting to 575 in the 3 pvps, 50 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 80/4 classic tokens. That's dedicated play, but it's way below hardcore/fanatic level.

Yeah, neither is 7+ clears unless you maximize how those points are scored.

Fair point on CP amounts (I've just got back into pvp so I tend to rule it out), but I have to disagree that it isn't fanatical play time. That is devotion beyond casual play, which is my point when it comes to roster progress.

The casual player, when their roster stalls, they stop trying to reach higher in game goals whether it is going beyond the 4 star in progression or higher pvp scores.

When their roster stalls pretty much entirely due to piss por RNG, they quickly become disenchanted, start under performing, and eventually give up. It's the number one complaint from nearly everyone that has left my alliance when quiting or I've had to kick out when they stop playing.

Though like all things game related, everyone has different definitions of what they consider hardcore or casual play. Myself, I hit max progression and beyond every pve, but never break into the top ten (I'm okay with that) and have returned to pvp with a goal of 300-500 per event and 5000 overall season scores. I'd say that is pretty hardcore play time when factored into having a real life and other hobbies.

And honestly, I'm quite happy with progression as it stands, while 4 stars do frustrate me especially new ones, I've got a solid 4 star foundation that I've slogged to attain. But I completely understand the casual player's side of not seeing roster progression at a certain point. The sea of 2 stars just beats you down.

Suddenreal

What he's talking about, smkspy, is this quote in particular:

smkspy wrote:

Pve progression-1-2 covers mean you're placing in the top 10...congrats on being part of the 10 percent that relentlessly grind the hamster wheel of pve. And it is a grind as someone that does 6 clears and wears down points to 1 and barely break scores in the top 50.

He's talking about getting covers in progression, not in ranked. So he's far from the top 10 you mistakenly put him in.

smkspy

Suddenreal wrote:

What he's talking about, smkspy, is this quote in particular:

smkspy wrote:

Pve progression-1-2 covers mean you're placing in the top 10...congrats on being part of the 10 percent that relentlessly grind the hamster wheel of pve. And it is a grind as someone that does 6 clears and wears down points to 1 and barely break scores in the top 50.

He's talking about getting covers in progression, not in ranked. So he's far from the top 10 you mistakenly put him in.

And that's what I get for posting when I had to work a triple shift and have had little to no sleep over the last three days lol. Must be cause we're in another week long pve, but I was having a hard time with a week is usually 2 pves. Therefore I equated the second cover was him mistakenly putting a placement cover in with a progression cover. My bad, shrug.

El Satanno

I like discussion and I have opinions. I'll take you head-on, OP!

bbigler wrote:

1. They make it easier to acquire 4* covers: this would initially make people happy until they realize that they don't have the ISO to champ all their maxed covered 4*s. The good thing is that people could choose to champ only the best characters, which also means that some characters may never get champed. Over time, everyone would be playing the same teams in PvP since everyone would only champ the best characters. That would get boring, and variety makes a good game. Plus, everyone would complain more about ISO deficiencies.

Unless we've been playing different games, this is how it had always been until championing. Champion levels actually mitigated this by providing extra value to those low-tier characters that you'd otherwise sell off without thinking twice. Hence people like myself with champ Mr. Sucktastic or Elektra's Worthless ****.

2. They increase ISO rewards for higher SCLs: this would allow people to level up their 4* and 5* characters as fast as they receive covers for them, thus increasing their character options for battles, which gives more team combinations, thus making it more fun to play. Since we all think there's a general ISO deficiency in the game, I would say this is out-of-balance. Another way to fix this is by simply reducing the overall ISO cost to level up characters.

Agreed with your base premise. It looked like CL7 was taking it in that direction, but CL8 has been nothing but a bag of flaming **** in relative comparison. I will depart from your line of thought there, as the Iso flow is better than it ever has been. I also have a fundamental dispute with the concept of "Iso deficit." See more on that below.

3. They introduce colorless covers or maxed color options: this would make everyone very happy as covers wouldn't go to waste, but this would also add to the overall ISO deficiency of the game. It would certainly help the random nature of getting covers, but it would add to your ISO needs as well. I think this change should happen, but ISO rewards are a bigger issue.

Agreed with premise and disagreed with your support again. My heart wants colorless covers (for 5* pulls, at least) but I have a sneaking suspicion that it would be rather harmful for both the game and the players. People buy tokens with HP these days and it's the chase for that right combination of colors that makes it happen. The people truly keeping the game afloat are buying for the 5* pulls. Make life easier for them to hit the magic 13 and you'll potentially pulled the rug out from under the whole game. Like it or not that's how I see it.

Re: "Iso deficit": I've contended elsewhere that Iso deficit is a fabrication born from the same Skinner Box that this game is built on. You don't need to max out every character, you want to. Once you get your core roster of top-tier characters sorted, everything else is a luxury. It's great that the Iso is rolling in in greater volume than ever, don't get me wrong. However we will still all be just fine if it were stemmed back to a year ago. Seriously.

4. They make it easier to acquire 5* covers: again, this would initially make people happy until everyone in the game is fighting with 5* rosters. If it was easier to get 5* covers, then players would spend a lot of their ISO on 5*s and bypass the majority of their lower tier characters. Instead of progressing one tier at a time, they could fully cover 5*s before they're finished covering and leveling up lower tier characters. But do we need to champ all characters? I suppose not, but I think players should "pay their dues" in each tier before being able to move up. Getting 5* covers right now is very slow, but by the time you're "done" champing 4*s, you should have enough 5* covers to start leveling them up. Nevertheless, once you're focus is on 5*s, your progress gets very slow, which ruins the reason for playing the game. Perhaps this was intentional by the devs so that people can "catch up" with players that use 5*s, OR they don't want their biggest buyers to leave because they're "done".

The entirety of the 5* is broken as hell. Almost literally everything about that class of characters, from their design to their distribution to their effect on your gaming experience, is awful. I'm not even sure where to begin dissecting the cancerous mass of problems to get at a cure. I once had the idea that they should nuke the 1* tier, hack a star off all the characters, and carry on with a new 1-4* game. Maybe I'll put that into a better post on that part of the board no one ever looks at...

5. They reduce the CP cost to buy a specific cover: this seems like a reasonable request, but I understand their reasoning: 20 CP for a random 4* cover (1 out of 126 covers) or 120 CP for a specific one; that's actually a good deal when you consider the odds. Since your odds of getting a 5* cover in an LT is around 1 out of 6, thus being 6 times harder, the CP cost for a specific 5* cover (720 CP) is 6 times the 4* cover rate (120 CP). I think their intent was to have players open tokens until they get most of the covers in a tier, and then start purchasing covers specifically for the higher cost. But, if it was easier to get these covers, your ISO needs increase as well.

I'll meet you halfway on this one. I think maybe only the 13th cover for a character ought to come at a discount if this is what we're entertaining. However I think we're avoiding a more pressing issue, being that covers can only be purchased with CP; the rarest and most valuable resource. That same resource being the only means of attaining the highest level of cover makes it wasteful (by most accounting) to spend on anything but Legendary pulls.

6. They reduce the HP cost of vaults and tokens: this would certainly hurt their revenue, but getting more covers seems great until you realize your ISO deficiency. If we get to a point where we generally have more ISO than we need, then we can start talking about better ways to get covers.

Disagreed; see above vis a vis purchases.

7. They reduce the number of missions or nodes in PvE: this seems appealing as PvE can be a real burnout, but what would happen if it took half of the time it takes now? Well, then almost everyone would complete all nodes and missions, so there would be little point difference between 1st place and 100th place. It would still come down to a grind for placement rewards. I think the solution to the grind is to remove the placement rewards altogether and increase the progression and mission rewards. This way everyone can play at their own pace and not plan their life around the event. The purpose of PvE would be to win some nice rewards while trying out different kinds of teams, all at a time convenient to you.

People are going to compete as long as there is something to compete for. I'm not as convinced that progression-only rewards in Story is as great an idea as I used to. Then again, I gave up on trying to compete in Story a long time ago. Never regretted it, either. I guess I'm just agnostic to Story as anything but a place to get 54 little rewards with a kicker at the end.

8. They reduce the frequency of character releases: this would certainly be a relief to everyone as we can hardly keep up with rostering, covering and leveling up new characters. From what I've read on this forum, it takes players about 2 weeks to champ a 4* once all covers are collected (which is true for me as well). Since they release a new character every 2 weeks, this seems like a fair rate of release, but it certainly feels like too much. If the rate was slower, then the dilution rate in the token pools slows down too, giving us a better chance to cover the new characters we already have. So yes, the current release schedule looks like it's out-of-balance. It also seems ridiculous that any new 4* character released now will be effectively useless for 6 to 12 months until enough covers are collected for them. Plus, I have to spend HP to roster them, which I don't think is fair. It feels more like a penalty than a reward when a new character is released: I have to spend 1000 HP to roster them, then use my new level 70 char repeatedly in difficult PvE battles and then add them to my long list of characters to collect and champ.

I'm agreed with you here, but like so many other player-friendly ideas (most of your list, really) it's a fairly clear threat to the business model the game is built upon. I'm not saying I agree with that model, mind you, but that does seem to be what it is. I'll go a step further, though, and say that if instead of churning out one character after another they created some new event types which required an entry fee they might find a good strike at middle ground. I remember way back when, they had some kind of special Versus event that cost HP to get in on. It flopped, but I think for easily avoided reasons.

Most importantly, the prize pool needs to be significantly greater than your run-of-the-mill events. Now I'm not talking about an extra cover or two, double Iso, or anything paltry like that. I'm talking capital-B, capital-D Big Deal. Something to the tune of Legendary 10-pack, or 1 each 5* covers for a character, or 6 digits of Iso. If you want to widen the net for entrants, scale the rewards to SHIELD level. Bickety-bam.

Next you have to make the price of entry some kind of value for the company. Again, slightly unpleasant for players but a necessity to make up for the potential lost revenue from character token buys. Probably the easiest way is to make a special buy-only entry token. If your prize pool is juicy enough, people will spend to get a chance at it.

Finally, you have to make it fun. Everyone knows I'm a fan of Combined Arms, but that's only one simple way to create variety. The point is, make it something different and people will want to pay to play.