Are Super Lightning Rounds the Answer for 4* PvP?

Vhailorx

People have been wondering about regular 4*pvp events ever since the game switched to a 4* meta in smer 2015.

But skeptics have always pointed out that 4* events for older characters woould heavily advantage vets who could field featured champs. This is especially true with 4* boosts being so strong in the current meta.

Are super lighting rounds the answer to this problem? They give vets a fun sandbox in which to use to their deep 4* benches, but they also don't skew season results or bar lower tier players from regular event prog rewards. And the limitrd number of 4* event tokens going out the door shouldn't result in too many new covers (which is a concern for demi/d3)


I want to see them in action later today, but i think this might be a good compromise.

mohio

I've heard it's more of a reaction to 3* Thanos in combination with 5* match damage downing seed teams in a single move. This "feature" has gotten several people automatically sandboxed for some reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were testing this 4* featured character to curtail that issue. The 20-person brackets and fairly decent rewards are definitely a nice bonus to get more engagement in the event too.

Also - people will keep complaining no matter how great these LR turn out to be. "See how good that was, we should have this all the time".

stowaway

I'm looking forward to the 20 person lightning rounds. I was on one of my many rage quits (see signature) whichever anniversary it was that featured them, so they'll be new to me -- and I already love lightning rounds, I'm one of those. But the fact that they're doing this with a brand new character, and an extremely powerful one, and not with XFW or Invisible Woman, or even Hulkbuster (or some other older and broadly covered 4*), makes it hard for me to see this as anything but an experiment in new ways for grabbing cash.

Cynicism aside, I'm all for it. 1 PM EST is 48 minutes away, and can't come soon enough.

Punisher5784

I agree with the OP.. this is definitely their answer to 4* PVP as well as the constant pleas to do something with Lightning Rounds. The devs were able to address both at the same time! It does not harm the PVP season and it gives the vets a place to create a 4* PVP team. Not sure how I feel about the 20-person bracket though.. although it was awesome during 4hor's and Elektra's release, it's not as awesome when only the T2 get a token. That means only the vet rosters will win those tokens but they don't guarantee the 4* cover.. heck it doesn't even guarantee a 3* cover so it's fine. My LR playtime will not increase as a result of this change but I am happy to see the devs are starting off 2017 with some positive changes.

stewbacca

Don't call it a bracket if I cant fight anybody in it.. once again a pvp where there is no vs p...

stochasticism

I'd say they look like the replacement for the weekly 4* character vaults.

Tilesmasher

I just completed the first SLR, For me this was way more work with less reward.

firethorne

I finished 1st in my first attempt and was rewarded with

drum roll please...

a
and
a

Yeah, I'll take seed teams for Thanos and friends to tear through for iso over this any day.

JablesMc

Yeah, while it was fun to do another round with C4rol(I only have 2covers), the reward was totally not worth it.

firethorne

I also think there probably needs to be a little bracket setup in terms of matchmaking on these. Looking through my current round, one person's best character is a level 106 ** Storm. Another character has a 465 Surfer, 464 Old Man, and 450 Black Bolt, etc. I'm comfortably in the middle with some 4* champs, but nothing usable on the 5* spectrum. I can't imagine our 2* friend is having a very good day. It is no wonder they get zeroes and ones when they run the "would you recommend this game to a friend" surveys. This is absolutely some rich get richer, pound on the little guy business.

Stax the Foyer

Heavens no. It sort of addresses the issue of variety in LRs, but that's it.

PvP already favors vets to a degree that 4* PvP wouldn't be a gamechanger in that regard. It would cause some interesting separation at the relatively high end, but it wouldn't make much of a difference overall.

4* PvP is long overdue. A midweek-only event for rewards that are only valuable in bulk isn't a replacement for that. Let the 4*s be something other than champion reward machines (I know they eventually become incredible again, but that's a long, long way off for most people).

Dragon_Nexus

Punisher5784 wrote:

That means only the vet rosters will win those tokens but they don't guarantee the 4* cover.. heck it doesn't even guarantee a 3* cover so it's fine. My LR playtime will not increase as a result of this change but I am happy to see the devs are starting off 2017 with some positive changes.

Speaking as someone who spent 45 minutes grinding out 20-25 point wins with various champed 4*s, rotating through them as some fell until I finished in first place, winning 1000 ISO and a 2* Thor and 3* Sentry cover...

...you're right on the money.

Thor's lightning round got you an Anniversary token for 4-5 and 1000 ISO.
3rd got you an Anniversary token and 2000 ISO
2nd got you 3x Anniversary tokens and 2000 ISO
1st fot you 3x Anniversary tokens, 2000 ISO and 25HP

I remember why I enjoyed that one so much, now. Especially since that token had a 9.9% chance of a Devil Dino.

Vhailorx

It does seem like top 2 is a bit toi restricted. Top 5 should probably be getting something desirable.

And yup, the anniversary LRs in year 1 were awesome! All of anniversary 1 was awesome. *sigh*

rixmith

With normal LR's I could play hard and finish in the top 50 and come away with 2 Heroic tokens. In this format, anything less than 1st place gives a lesser reward than that. With the broken scoring and the loaner Carol having almost 9K health, and no variety at all, I'm not particularly enthused.