Reduce 5* Cover CP Costs for Classic Legends

babinro

I've been thinking about a way to address the dilution in 5* Classic packs and I think I found one that would be very simple in terms of implementation.

The Problem
Opening classic packs to champion 5*'s has become a beginners trap. It requires an enormous amount of luck to get ahead and in most cases you can fully expect to throw away many excess 5* covers because they were the wrong color. There are simply too many 5*'s in classics that dilution has become a major issue. Trying to champion someone in classics is completely unsatisfying and the 720 cp asking price for a single cover is completely unreasonable when you understand how much good that CP would do in Latest Legends when properly hoarding.

The Solution
Reduce the cover purchase for CLASSIC LEGENDS 5* ONLY to 240 CP.

Why is this change good for the game?
1) This change represents the option of gradual progress on a weekly basis. Something that would greatly enhance a players mood and help keep them invested in the game. Lets face it, saving for 250-300+ pulls in latest legends because that's the only reasonable way to champion a 5* and make meaningful end game progress is a big cause for burnout among the vets.

2) You can ONLY buy covers you've unlocked. The fact that you need one of each over means there's incentive to still open covers using the RNG system first. This will still be a point of frustration for some as my 8 yellow, 2 red, 0 blue Captain America would illustrate but many of us will get one of each cover in time even with dilution as it is.

3) This can only be 'abused' until the character is championed and not further. No worries about this enabling a harmful 5* environment because you can't abuse this to go beyond level 450.

4) This gives players and whales a compelling choice of how they want to spend their resources. Right now, its Latest Legends or nothing when it comes to the decision to try to obtain a level 450 5*. This change would give them a realistic option of foregoing Latest Legends briefly in order to finish up characters who are are close but couldn't quite make it. Admittedly, most players would still save for Latest but in the event there's a character or two they don't like, the decision to work on Classic characters again becomes a very realistic decision. Alternatively, they could save for Latest while using buy clubs to purchase missing covers in Classics (which should appeal to D3's bottom line).

5) This change seems extremely easy to implement. When coding the necessary changes to switch a character into Latest simply adjust the values of CP from 720 to 240. This makes for an easy change that won't necessarily solve our 5* problems but would go a long way to helping them.

Do you have any relatively easy to implement changes that could help out 5* progression?
Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

ValekBoss

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

Orion

If they did this I would throw down 960 CP right now to finish off Black Suit Spidey and Phoenix.

Wobby

aesthetocyst wrote:

ValekBoss wrote:

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

You have stats?

Presumably the devs do.

I'm going there soon so I will be contributing to the total ... whatever it may be.

I know literally no one paying for 5* covers. This change would definitely make it a viable outcome.

firethorne

babinro wrote:

Do you have any relatively easy to implement changes that could help out 5* progression?
Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Allow skill respec once you get any color to 5 covers.

Polares

aesthetocyst wrote:

ValekBoss wrote:

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

You have stats?

Presumably the devs do.

I'm going there soon so I will be contributing to the total ... whatever it may be.

Yeah me too, and it will break my heart


I really doubt they would reduce the cost to 240CP (or just 12 pulls from classic), it is too cheap. At that cost it would be a great investment just to buy the covers, and the players that get to 1200 in every event would champ all 5s quite fast. But I agree 720 is really expensive, so let's see. The average ratio is between 7-8, so if we double that to 16, we get 320 which I think is the very minimum they would price something like this. And at 320 I still think is a good trade off, even at 400, more in line with the price it should have (in the end this is just for champing, you still need to pull the covers for champion levels).

Straycat

What about a designated 5* token every week? 10% chance of one 5* like they do for new characters, but cycle thru every character.
I think the dilution issue could be addressed by adding more token options. I think they could split up the 4*s as well. They could start doing 5* vaults or something. Make a vault that you open with cp instead of hp.

IlDuderino

Great idea, I have been hoping that they do this for a while!

I think 240CP may be a bit low but 300CP - 360CP would be fair.

The downside is that this makes it easier to skip earlier tiers of play and so people may end up with big MMR problems (even bigger than those already facing the average 5* player). A way around this would be to link the cost / ability to purchase 5* covers to a minimum clearance level

Orion

Wobby wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

ValekBoss wrote:

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

You have stats?

Presumably the devs do.

I'm going there soon so I will be contributing to the total ... whatever it may be.

I know literally no one paying for 5* covers. This change would definitely make it a viable outcome.

Viable? It would be the preferred outcome. Right now you should get a 5* in roughly 1 out of 7 pulls. For the cost of 12 pulls, not only are you guaranteed a 5*, but it's the exact character and color that you want.

I like the idea, but 240 CP is way too low. Maybe 360 or even 480 CP would be more likely to happen.

TetsujinOni

Wobby wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

ValekBoss wrote:

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

You have stats?

Presumably the devs do.

I'm going there soon so I will be contributing to the total ... whatever it may be.

I know literally no one paying for 5* covers. This change would definitely make it a viable outcome.

1x OML and 2x Black Bolt through direct purchase. 2160 to change the face of my game? Yes.

zonatahunt

I just dropped my first ever 720 cp for my last Black Bolt cover. His build was 345, so I only had two viable cover color pulls. With 720 cp I'd only get 36 pulls....and with those odds the price tag of 720 cp for his final cover was my only real choice. People will keep paying 720 cp because it's MUCH better than praying for a miracle.

Tarheelmax

My request would be to add a third token pool. Have Latest, Classics, and Featured. The first two operate as they do today, but the third is a token that rotates every 10 days that has 3 classic 5*s. Cost would be 25CP.

mohio

Tarheelmax wrote:

My request would be to add a third token pool. Have Latest, Classics, and Featured. The first two operate as they do today, but the third is a token that rotates every 10 days that has 3 classic 5*s. Cost would be 25CP.

While I might prefer the OP's suggestion (and other "solutions" don't preclude that change from happening either fwiw), this one seems like something more likely to happen. I do wonder how easy it would be though to constantly change the contents of a pack. It can't be too hard as they update the latest legends pack every 2 months or so, plus there's room in the legendary store for a third option, so it makes sense to have it there. It's such a simple stopgap solution that I'm actually really surprised it hasn't happened already. I bet it would get a lot more people spending cp and potentially joining buy clubs to finish off those last few covers of some of the classic characters they're close in.

edit : I should add, I too am in the "seriously thinking about spending CP to finish a 5*" camp. My OML is 5/4/3 and SS is 2/5/5. I've trashed 2 or 3 SS and 3 OML (and 2 PHX before finally pulling the one I needed) trying to cover my classics before dilution finally drove me to start hoarding. Spending so much for just one cover really isn't appealing though. I hate that my SS may never get fully covered (OML gets his final yellow at the 3 year mark at least), but I feel like it's more worthwhile at this point to just keep hoarding until I can max out 3 toons in LL instead. Reducing the cost would make me so much more amenable to spending the cp in that way.

Crowl

mohio wrote:

Tarheelmax wrote:

My request would be to add a third token pool. Have Latest, Classics, and Featured. The first two operate as they do today, but the third is a token that rotates every 10 days that has 3 classic 5*s. Cost would be 25CP.

While I might prefer the OP's suggestion (and other "solutions" don't preclude that change from happening either fwiw), this one seems like something more likely to happen. I do wonder how easy it would be though to constantly change the contents of a pack. It can't be too hard as they update the latest legends pack every 2 months or so, plus there's room in the legendary store for a third option, so it makes sense to have it there. It's such a simple stopgap solution that I'm actually really surprised it hasn't happened already. I bet it would get a lot more people spending cp and potentially joining buy clubs to finish off those last few covers of some of the classic characters they're close in.

edit : I should add, I too am in the "seriously thinking about spending CP to finish a 5*" camp. My OML is 5/4/3 and SS is 2/5/5. I've trashed 2 or 3 SS and 3 OML (and 2 PHX before finally pulling the one I needed) trying to cover my classics before dilution finally drove me to start hoarding. Spending so much for just one cover really isn't appealing though. I hate that my SS may never get fully covered (OML gets his final yellow at the 3 year mark at least), but I feel like it's more worthwhile at this point to just keep hoarding until I can max out 3 toons in LL instead. Reducing the cost would make me so much more amenable to spending the cp in that way.

If regularly changing that 3rd token would be too much hassle, a simple solution would be to do multiple generations of classics, each one only having 3 different 5*s, you still might be unlucky on your most covered ones being spread across different tokens, but at least you could target one at a time.

Crowl

firethorne wrote:

babinro wrote:

Do you have any relatively easy to implement changes that could help out 5* progression?
Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Allow skill respec once you get any color to 5 covers.

This should not be limited to 5* either, just have people pay the champing fee when they get to five covers in one colour and get the respeccing part of championing at that point.

Tilesmasher

I hope there's some kind of change, and soon.

Because choosing between saving / spending 720 cp or throwing it away 20 at a time until a miracle occurs is a pretty awful choice.

I like the rotating single character 5* vault idea, make it a 15% drop for 25cp or something.

mpqr7

That would be great to have a viable way to finish out my 5/1/5 OML.

Right now, I win around 100 cp per week (30 from pvp, 25 or 50 from pve prog, 14 from pve nodes, 40 from champion rewards, etc), so that means it will take me around 1.5 months to get to 720 cp, which would be 3 months to get to 720 x 2... an entire quarter of a year to get my first championed 5*.

Which sure I could do that, it just seems like a lot of effort, and missing out on numerous 4*s and possible 5*s.

I'm sure plenty of others have saved up 1440 cp.. I've started hoarding a bit, and I'm already at 146 cp... ugh....

TxMoose

if they'd just discount covers once you get an ability to 5, that would help a ton. or allow recpec's, even for a fee, would help.

Wobby

TetsujinOni wrote:

Wobby wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

ValekBoss wrote:

Yeah not gonna happen.
Enough people pay the 720cp for a cover so why should they change it?

You have stats?

Presumably the devs do.

I'm going there soon so I will be contributing to the total ... whatever it may be.

I know literally no one paying for 5* covers. This change would definitely make it a viable outcome.

1x OML and 2x Black Bolt through direct purchase. 2160 to change the face of my game? Yes.

Your 435 OML going to 450 isn't a positive change though. If your Bolt is 4/3/4 then sure...

Dayv

Straycat wrote:

What about a designated 5* token every week? 10% chance of one 5* like they do for new characters, but cycle thru every character.
I think the dilution issue could be addressed by adding more token options. I think they could split up the 4*s as well. They could start doing 5* vaults or something. Make a vault that you open with cp instead of hp.

Ugh, no, not this. Those 10% tokens are a terrible deal. Look at the expected cost per 5* cover at different costs and rates:

• Classic LT: 20 CP @ 15% Legendary -- 133 CP/cover
• Latest LT: 20 CP @ 15% Legendary -- 166 CP/cover
• Featured character LT: 25 CP @ 15% Legendary -- 250 CP/cover

The Classics and Latest are close enough in value that there's room for debate over which is the better deal. Featured character tokens, on the other hand, are nearly twice the cost per 5* character compared to Classics, and 50% more over Latest.

The only 10% tokens I'll pull are the ones that I win in events or vaults.

Dayv

TxMoose wrote:

if they'd just discount covers once you get an ability to 5, that would help a ton.

This is what I was going to suggest. The cost could even be variable.

A couple examples, using 5* costs only, but I don't think changes like this should be limited to the 5* tier.

• Example 1: Lower costs on powers when the character has one or more powers at 5. The base cost per cover stays at 720 CP, but once you get a power to 5, the cost on the other two drops to 360 CP. If you get two powers to 5, the third power is dropped to 240 CP.
• Example 2: Lower costs based on how many covers the character has in total, rather than how many are maxed. At 0-5 covers, cost is unchanged at 720 CP. Each cover after the fourth adds a cumulative discount of 60 CP, so it goes from 720 to 660 to 600... down to 240 CP if you have a character at 12 covers and just want to buy the 13th.
• Example 3: Mix and match! Lower costs for all covers when powers hit 5, and according to total powers! 30 CP discount per cover above four! 100 CP discount per power at five covers! 80 CP discount per power at four covers! Watch players develop strategies over the right order to build characters in purely out of CP! (Maybe don't do this one.)

Or just allow covers beyond the fifth to be applied to other powers.