More 3*s. Pros and cons?

firethorne

Thanos is coming. And, like Strange, he's a 3*/5* combo. This left me questioning something I saw in the article.

Previously the team had mentioned they were moving away from 3-Stars. What changed?

Josh Austin: We are super excited to be able to do this again, especially considering how popular it was when Doctor Strange was released a few weeks ago. Our overall focus is doing what is best for the entire community and we needed to rethink how new 3-Stars will add or take away from the player experience.

The game continues to evolve and we learn new things from both player feedback and behavior in the game. Once upon a time we wanted to progress with even stronger characters—hence the introduction of 5-Star heroes—but we have come to believe that releasing a couple of new 3-Stars each year will help the balance for players both old and new. But in all seriousness, I earned a 3-Star Doctor Strange and he is now one of my favorite characters to use in events so I am definitely a fan of us reintroducing 3-Stars.

I can't say I'm as big of a fan. While there is some brief novelty to be had from getting a new character you can have mostly covered and usable in a couple months, it is very much overshadowed by the relative weakness at my current CL and scaling. It doesn't feel great buying yet another slot for required nodes for a character who will be 200 levels below his opponents.

And, in my opinion, what is best for the 3* community is to help speed them out of it, not to add to it keeping them there indefinitely. If the game is stagnating, and you feel like there needs to be more content for these players, you've already created it in the 4* and 5* tiers. It is best to help players feel like they have some momentum that isn't sideways, to get them to a place where a new 4* or 5* won't be completely irrelevant to them for a couple years.

Finally, by helping the community, you have a significant bonus of being able to test more effectively. By having a more concentrated user base, you can spend more time testing with that in mind, rather than having an incredibly fragmented user base where testing all possibilities becomes logistically problematic and groups are forgotten.

chamber44

agreed. My first thought was that it was a shameless cash/rosterslot grab. I get that getting a new character out into more hands sounds really fun (rather than putting it behind the 5* wall), but instead, it seems like it would be better for the player base at large for making that 5* wall easier to climb. Instead, now there's a further diluted 3* pool (i've only drawn ONE 3* stephen strange outside of his event, for example. In fact, i've drawn more 5* Stranges thx to LT's.)

I don't totally have a solution, though. We all want more characters, but there's only so many tiers that they can be added to.

Vhailorx

It seems like demi has finally recognized that purely 4* and 5* meta is detrimental to the new player experience. It takes 6+ months to build into 4* land now (if not much longer). So new releases dont generate much excitement for the majority of players who are still in 2* and 3* land.

But their solution seems to be releasing more 3*s as a distraction rather than substanially increasing the speed with which one can build a 4* roster.

New 3*s aren't bad per se. But they have to be really good or unique to make an impact with 40+ in the wild already. They did that once with strange. But can they do it several times a year? Would anyone care about a psylocke level release?

veny

Pros? Dont see any since we can use 3 covers at once, most of 3*s are useless compared to 4*s, too many are useless compared to other 3*s.
Cons? New 3*s are decreasing drop rate of others both from regular tokens and PvE/PvP/DDQ.

TheRealJRad

I think they added another 3* so DDQ isn't an odd number.

Shmoe50

If it is done as well as the Dr Strange release is, I am in favor. I am a mainly 3 and 4 star player, with most of my 3* championed but not maxed, and only Dino at 275 among my 4* characters. I LOVED having Strang3 in the pve, which is mostly what I play. If 3Thanos is anywhere near as good, I think it would be a good addition...but it has to be done well!

DapperChewie

TheRealJRad wrote:

I think they added another 3* so DDQ isn't an odd number.

They'll need to add 3 more in order to get it back into a proper rotation.

Or 8 more. Maybe they'll put out a lazy 3 for every 5? That would actually be pretty cool, I'd love a 3* Old Man Logan or Phoenix, with the same abilities but scaled back for 3* levels of damage/healing.

Lopan15

I have ~25 4* champed and only OML is above lvl 270 in 5* land (320). I have ZERO interest in pushing into 5* land. Between the noted scaling issues and being forced to use the same 3 or 4 characters for everything, it's just not on my radar. Also having no fully covered 5* is a hinderance. Having said that, I welcome new 3* for my situation. Boosted Strang3 is working nicely with my 4* characters for my scaling and adding anyone else with helpful skill sets is fine.

This of course just magnifies the problems with the game where holding back your roster is more beneficial than actually pushing forward and strengthening your roster. I can still hit 900 in pvp with my current roster and I can get top ten in PVE if I'm willing to optimally grind nodes as I can clear them quickly with so many boosted options.

bbigler

Another 3*, even a good one, isn't going to help new players - but instead it will slightly hurt them because that's one more roster slot to purchase along with a slightly more diluted pool for tokens and slower cycling to get their covers in other events. It will also thin out their ISO budgeting as another character needs it. So, in reality, releasing another 3* slows down new players.

As for veteran players, another 3* means another slot to purchase and another mouth to feed ISO, which again, slows things down. Releasing new characters adds more variety but it also makes progression slower and slower.

firethorne

aesthetocyst wrote:

many players are very casual and will never progress into 4*s or serious PvP play. If you're primarily / solely a PvE player, you could stay in 3* land (or even 2* land) forever. Why not? If you just like playing occasionally, it's fine.

You aren't wrong. And I am hard pressed to give you a good answer for the "why not" from the perspective of the player. Making progress in your roster can certainly end up doing more harm than good. That, from the perspective of the developer, should be very disconcerting. It means you've already invested heavily in developing content that is going to waste, that a large swath of the audience sees as so out of reach as to be in effect nonexistent. It also means you have to do an awkward balancing act of making the game relevant for both these casual players and your most devoted fans who do use this content. And we all know, that hasn't always gone the best.

Dormammu

It seems to me a good way to 'help balance' the 3* rarity would be to actually balance it. There is such a huge gap between the bottom and top of that tier. On one end you have elite characters like Dr. Strange and Cyclops, but then you have characters like Spider-Man and Beast/Psylocke/Punisher/Sentry who are like the **** on the bottom of your shoe.

But, whatever. The stem of new characters is never going to stop. Eventually the game will need a more expedient way to attain covers, or increase the CP flow to buy them, because the market is already over-flooded and new players will face unenviable odds of cover maxing any characters beyond the 2* rarity, along with insane HP costs to open the roster slots. That's really the only negative to adding more new characters - alienating/overwhelming the new player.

sinnerjfl

You people really try hard to find a negative aspect to everything don't you?

I love that we're getting a 3* & 5* version, as is the case with 3* Strange, you can really get a feel of how the 5* would play.

Since 99.9% of people playing this game won't cover a new 5* in at least a year, this offers a majority of people a way to play a character
and his new mechanics without spending a ton of money.

The 5* tier is accessible only through pure RNG and if we can get a glimpse of how these characters play, why not?

SnowcaTT

Last time I liked the biggest pro - I can play with the character! With RNG-only (and EXTREMELY slow) 5* building, I'll likely never play with a 13-cover 5* Strange or Thanos. Honestly, I wish they'd make 3* covers for the other 5*'s as well. Lets all players understand what they do, remove the mystery a bit. And side benefit: it removes that 5* from the rotation once in awhile when the 3* is required for PVP!

Although today I thought about that again...my Strange is covered, and I'll never be using him.....just like all my other 3*'s.....

Dormammu

sinnerjfl wrote:

You people really try hard to find a negative aspect to everything don't you?

You do realize this is the internet?

firethorne

SnowcaTT wrote:

With RNG-only (and EXTREMELY slow) 5* building, I'll likely never play with a 13-cover 5* Strange or Thanos. Honestly, I wish they'd make 3* covers for the other 5*'s as well.

sinnerjfl wrote:

Since 99.9% of people playing this game won't cover a new 5* in at least a year, this offers a majority of people a way to play a character

And, perhaps that is as much my problem. Why have they already spent so much time on content 99.9% of players never see? Why is there no road to the 5* tier that isn't entirely based on a random number generator? I see more 3*'s as an attempt to postpone dealing with the problems that you've stated.

If you want to give people a sense of how a 5* would play, why not simply let them be able to get a 5*? I find it hard to count it as a win if the main reason people like 3* variants because they've resigned themselves to the idea they'll never complete the 5*.

Punisher5784

I hope to they make lazy 3* versions of Green Goblin and Black Bolt soon

xKOBALTx

DapperChewie wrote:

TheRealJRad wrote:

I think they added another 3* so DDQ isn't an odd number.

They'll need to add 3 more in order to get it back into a proper rotation.

Nope. DDQ started before they ever got to 40 characters and the nice 8 x 5 rotation. They always just added on to the end like Strange was recently. It can be an odd number, an even number, no way divisible by 5, etc. The next rotation will just pick up where previous one ends.

Technically even the 8 x 5 rotations that most people are used to aren't perfect if you look at them a little closer. How? The start of DDQ way back when was Black Panther. If you paid attention to the last set you would notice that Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision and the newly added Strange were all awarding the second cover. But what did Black Panther reward? The third cover, because he's the start of the new rotation. That changeover in the middle of a set is a relic of how these rotations have worked since the beginning.

DDQ has not, does not, and will never need a specific amount of characters for its rotation to work.

sinnerjfl

firethorne wrote:

And, perhaps that is as much my problem. Why have they already spent so much time on content 99.9% of players never see? Why is there no road to the 5* tier that isn't entirely based on a random number generator? I see more 3*'s as an attempt to postpone dealing with the problems that you've stated.

If you want to give people a sense of how a 5* would play, why not simply let them be able to get a 5*? I find it hard to count it as a win if the main reason people like 3* variants because they've resigned themselves to the idea they'll never complete the 5*.

The problem with the 5* tier:

It's only accessible through RNG. There's a reason for this, there's only 11 (12 soon) of them and if they were earnable regularly,
you'd have them covered way too fast. I know it's not fun to read but they're the end-game content for now and you
cant let your players have them all too soon. I do agree though that there needs to be a better way to earn them.

The 5* tier is also way too strong compared to the 4* tier. I don't think they were meant to be obtained until a long time
and that's why they are this strong. They're the best of the best, therefore they should be the most difficult to obtain.

To your question, why did they spend time on the 5* tier? To keep people playing so they have something to chase.
Let's be real, you can't win this game, there's only one goal and its to improve your roster. 5*'s are hard to obtain on purpose
to keep us around longer. They're obviously too difficult and frustrating to collect for now though, I don't think anyone finds it
too easy.

Pongie

Con, my signature of completing/champion 3* is no longer valid

veny

sinnerjfl wrote:

You people really try hard to find a negative aspect to everything don't you?

Why? Right now i have many 3*s around level 210 and i am in the first quarter of 3->4* transition (i champed 10th cover yesterday, yay).
New 3* means this:
- slower rotation in DDQ
- new 3*s in PvE loot pool
- new 3*s in PvP loot pool
- new 3*s in Token pool (both event and usual ones)

All this slows me down in my path to level 266 (as you propably know, best rewards are at level 220+ where LTs start to be frequent). Plus, i must (dont have to but i would miss the cover in PvE and PvP which would be bad) buy a slot for new cover, which means bye 1000HP.
What will i get in exchange? 3* character (i use 5*s and 4*s.. oh and some 3*s but Thanos doenst look useful to me), minus 105K ISO to champ him, 1 LT for 1st promote (the only positive thing i see).

I fully understand there are players who use 3*s activelly but why? There are 41 3* covers, dont tell me Thanos will be that unique and useful.
IF there were a feature that would use my covers, i would say yes, add more of them. But now, when i use 20% of my roster i simply cant see many pros of releasing new character (no matter how many stars does he have, but 5* is actually awesome... mainly cuz he pushes Black Bolt in 20CP token).

So please, try to understand the perspective of others.

DFiPL

I don't mind. It's going to be much easier to get a playable version of Thanos in 3* land than it will in 5* land (even though I would cheerfully roster both, as I've done with Strange). So if there's a 3* Thanos out there, cool. I'll open a spot for him and roster him and we'll see who his champion reward is when the time comes.