Token purchases - the new, the bad, and the ugly [LR Nerf]

HailMary

Phantron wrote:

There are two separate, unrelated issues with LRs:

1. The guys who do well in them generally already has the covers. This creates no real value to the community. That is, from D3's point of view the guy with the maxed Magneto winning Magneto again is a total waste of resources. You're pretty sure that guy isn't going to spend more money because he sold his 3 Magneto covers for 1500 iso8 or stashed one just in case, and you obviously forfeit any chance of some lucky guy who didn't have Magneto get sucked into the game more from his win.

This may be true for a few top players farming HP, but I took both my CMags & my Hood from a navel-gazing 5-7 covers to a roster-leading 11 covers in the last round of villain LRs. I also got a Hulk or two and a Punisher from the last round of heroic LRs, so my Hulk is actually usable if I were so inclined.

To circle back to your earlier comment, LRs absolutely are used as a major avenue of 2*->3* advancement. I was hoping to get my Punisher into fighting shape with this round of heroic LRs, but not anymore.

kalex716

HailMary wrote:

Phantron wrote:

To circle back to your earlier comment, LRs absolutely are used as a major avenue of 2*->3* advancement.

If you are in the top 5 percentile of competitive users who play this game, then yes. Everyone else has to try and get on that level. But its mathematically capped by the very nature of the competition.

Unknown

davecazz wrote:

even though the tokens are nerfed, it's still the best way to get 3*s that aren't featured.

I'm not following here. Courageous tokens have no better chance to pull 3*s that AREN'T featured in the LRs than regular heroic tokens, correct? Why are they the best way to get 3*s that aren't featured, just because you can get three of them for top 2?

Kuchiri wrote:

When I bought the Courageous 10-pack I got...
<snip>
Yellow Invisible Woman
<snip>
Blue Doctor Doom
Red Psylock
<snip>

And these results, if accurate, seem to belie the token description that they yield "** or featured ***," as none of those are featured, obviously.

Unknown

kalex716 wrote:

HailMary wrote:

Phantron wrote:

To circle back to your earlier comment, LRs absolutely are used as a major avenue of 2*->3* advancement.

If you are in the top 5 percentile of competitive users who play this game, then yes. Everyone else has to try and get on that level. But its mathematically capped by the very nature of the competition.

You are wrong. I am not in the top 5% by any means, and I have won covers multiple times since I started trying. As stated above, I have a total of three characters over 65, two of whom are Thors so I can't use them together.

kalex716

Rajjeq wrote:

You are wrong. I am not in the top 5% by any means, and I have won covers multiple times since I started trying. As stated above, I have a total of three characters over 65, two of whom are Thors so I can't use them together.

How can this possibly be true though, think about it? LR are not bracketed, they only payout the top percentile of competitors. Period. I don't care who you place in the top 25 with (or even the top 100!), if you do it at all (bagman, storm, iron man, whatever), you've proven yourself to be an exceptionally savy player of Marvel Puzzle Quest.

You're better than most people who play this game, and that matters because as I said, these only pay out X amount of users tops.

Everyone has to try and place as high as they can, but not everyone will be able to place in the token prize brackets.

If you've leveraged lightening rounds for 3*'s you're in the top percentage of players by the very nature of competition and rankings.

Puritas

kalex716 wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

You are wrong. I am not in the top 5% by any means, and I have won covers multiple times since I started trying. As stated above, I have a total of three characters over 65, two of whom are Thors so I can't use them together.

How can this possibly be true though, think about it? LR are not bracketed, they only payout the top percentile of competitors. Period. I don't care who you place in the top 25 with (or even the top 100!), if you do it at all (bagman, storm, iron man, whatever), you've proven yourself to be an exceptionally savy player of Marvel Puzzle Quest.

You're better than most people who play this game, and that matters because as I said, these only pay out X amount of users tops.

Everyone has to try and place as high as they can, but not everyone will be able to.

If you've leveraged lightening rounds for 3*'s you're in the top percentage of players.

Top percentage of players who are playing that event, and have the time for the whole event.
Its a much smaller pool than you think, and its easily doable to grab a diabolical token without using a single 3* character of your own

Unknown

Plus, if you are not a high-end player, you will have a low MMR and fight all the way to a token/cover against im35/storm/mbw teams.

Unknown

Throwing out extreme cases of luck/tanking/timing, The LR placement is akin to farming a rare spawn in older MMORPG. Every Mageneto round there are exactly 2 guys who will get his red cover. If you and someone else got it, that means nobody else have the red cover regardless of how many other players there are (at least up to 100k). Yes you can make progress because the guys who benefit from the LRs usually move on either because they feel like being nice, or more likely it wasn't worth the hassle to compete intensely for 90 minutes to sell Magneto back for 500 iso8s. But it's very definitely a queue because it's unbracketed. If you're not someone who is part of the 'haves', your progress is generally only possible because the 'haves' decided to let you in.

Some people talk about LRs as paying their dues or whatever. That's not how a game works if you plan on expanding. Sure, if the game is static or even contracting you can talk about these things, but hopefully this isn't the direction of the game. I benefited immensely from Lighting Rounds but that's just because very early on I figured that having Magento with 5 blue is basically a way to cut in the line, but there's nothing fair about the whole process and it's not good for the game. Besides, if everyone cut in front of the line, by definition most of these guys will still be left with nothing, and then there's all the guys who can't even cut in front.

kalex716

Puritas wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

Top percentage of players who are playing that event, and have the time for the whole event.
Its a much smaller pool than you think, and its easily doable to grab a diabolical token without using a single 3* character of your own

I don't care about the character thing, i'm just saying if you know enough about MPQ to be using these things as a means of going 3*, you are the exception not the norm.

These are unbracketed remember, what do you think they actually run as in terms of active participants?

a few hundred? 1 thousand or more? 2 thousand or more? And I'm trying to place top 25? I just finished tanking the punisher one and it had me down in the 10,000's but that most assuredly isn't an accurate number of real participants.

At any rate, I have a feeling your definition of easy and mine are very different.

Unknown

i believe that its not uncommon to have 4k people in any given LR

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

i believe that its not uncommon to have 4k people in any given LR

Out of those 4k how many are actually trying to place? Guessing majority are tanking or going for 50-100 pt progression.

bahamut685

As with any terrible design fail, expect no response [or comment] from D3...
I'm looking at you progression rewards going to roughly 3x the highest points achieved in Unstable Iso-8 (rerun).

Puritas

kalex716 wrote:

These are unbracketed remember, what do you think they actually run as in terms of active participants?

a few hundred? 1 thousand or more? 2 thousand or more? And I'm trying to place top 25? I just finished tanking the punisher one and it had me down in the 10,000's but that most assuredly isn't an accurate number of real participants.

Probably a couple hundred per event at most, especially now
You're tanking down in the 10,000s, but most of those are people grabbing easy iso
Get anywhere over 250 points (the max people go to for progression ISO), and I'd be very surprised if you didn't finish in top 100

Except hood/mags tourneys

Almost the entire playerbase in the first few months used LRs as their transition from 2* to 3*s, with the exception of IM40
I guess there's just seas of exceptions to your norm

HailMary

kalex716 wrote:

I don't care about the character thing, i'm just saying if you know enough about MPQ to be using these things as a means of going 3*, you are the exception not the norm.

These are unbracketed remember, what do you think they actually run as in terms of active participants?

a few hundred? 1 thousand or more? 2 thousand or more? And I'm trying to place top 25? I just finished tanking the punisher one and it had me down in the 10,000's but that most assuredly isn't an accurate number of real participants.

At any rate, I have a feeling your definition of easy and mine are very different.

Rajj almost certainly doesn't mean "LR Top 25 placement is easy for the typical player." But rather, it's easily doable, meaning that if you truly try to place in LRs, and prepare well for it, the implicit roster-strength requirements are not much higher than the reqs for high placement in normal PvP.

If you're simply fielding a 1* team, you're going to get slaughtered in every LR except for Loki rounds that start at 4 am EST, that's quite true. However, Rajj and I have successfully fielded near-max 2* teams for Top 8 & Top 25 placement. If you compare that to general Top 5/10 placement in normal PvP events, I think you'll find the implicit roster-strength minima to be similar. The real difference is in how you play: good LR placement generally requires 60-90 minutes of attentive play, and good MMR prep work beforehand if you're running less than a 3* team. Yes, active MMR management is highly atypical within the general MPQ populace, but it's not an advantage that is solely available to veterans and/or big spenders. It simply requires curiosity and drive.

If you're implying that top placement in LRs should be casually attainable by players which are, in every way, "the norm," then why even bother maintaining a facade of "competition"? Everyone should simply take turns "winning."

Unknown

Let see.
1. I get 2 yellow Classic Storm covers back when they generated red. She is nerfed less than a week later. (reasonable)
2. I get a red for my 0/5 Ragnarok . I spend my second $20 on this game to get 2 more red covers hoping to get the next two red in LRs. Nerfed literally the next day. (got my money back for this though.) (way too harsh)
3. I get Thorverine going at lvl85. Get nerfed 7 days later. (reasonable)
4. Finally have a really good villain group to win/place highly in evil LRs. Plan to sell villain covers for hp. Next LR, *** no longer give hp. (money grab, but grudgingly understandable)
5. Am finally consistently placing top 5s, third *** cover now goes to alliance rewards. (Pay to win. 20 men alliances have an advantage. Being in an alliance make you responsible to others. I already have a job.)
6. Have a group to place highly in good LRs so I can fully cover my Patch, Grey Widow and Hulk. Rewards are now ****. (Really no reason.)

I have been lurking in these forums since January and I hate that my first post has to be a negative one. I really want to like this game but it seems that for every step forward they take to better the game, they take 2 back. So I'm taking a break. I might check it out later but I'm tired of being disappointed. I feel like I got enough for the money I finally ended up spending on this game but I don't need to be annoyed anymore.

Thanks IceIX, yogi_, Eddiemon, mischiefmaker, and others you have made invaluable contributions to this community. Have fun.

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

These are unbracketed remember, what do you think they actually run as in terms of active participants?

a few hundred? 1 thousand or more? 2 thousand or more? And I'm trying to place top 25? I just finished tanking the punisher one and it had me down in the 10,000's but that most assuredly isn't an accurate number of real participants.

Probably a couple hundred per event at most, especially now
You're tanking down in the 10,000s, but most of those are people grabbing easy iso
Get anywhere over 250 points (the max people go to for progression ISO), and I'd be very surprised if you didn't finish in top 100

At the end of the punisher LR I had ~320 points and had to fight one more match so I didn't slip out of top 100, so that's the threshold from my sample size of: 1

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

I don't care about the character thing, i'm just saying if you know enough about MPQ to be using these things as a means of going 3*, you are the exception not the norm.

These are unbracketed remember, what do you think they actually run as in terms of active participants?

a few hundred? 1 thousand or more? 2 thousand or more? And I'm trying to place top 25? I just finished tanking the punisher one and it had me down in the 10,000's but that most assuredly isn't an accurate number of real participants.

At any rate, I have a feeling your definition of easy and mine are very different.

Rajj almost certainly doesn't mean "LR Top 25 placement is easy for the typical player." But rather, it's easily doable, meaning that if you truly try to place in LRs, and prepare well for it, the implicit roster-strength requirements are not much higher than the reqs for high placement in normal PvP.

If you're simply fielding a 1* team, you're going to get slaughtered in every LR except for Loki rounds that start at 4 am EST, that's quite true. However, Rajj and I have successfully fielded near-max 2* teams for Top 8 & Top 25 placement. If you compare that to general Top 5/10 placement in normal PvP events, I think you'll find the implicit roster-strength minima to be similar. The real difference is in how you play: good LR placement generally requires 60-90 minutes of attentive play, and good MMR prep work beforehand if you're running less than a 3* team. Yes, active MMR management is highly atypical within the general MPQ populace, but it's not an advantage that is solely available to veterans and/or big spenders. It simply requires curiosity and drive.

If you're implying that top placement in LRs should be casually attainable by players which are, in every way, "the norm," then why even bother maintaining a facade of "competition"? Everyone should simply take turns "winning."

Plus, you didn't need Top 25. 26-50 also gave you a guaranteed 3* villain in the diabolical token.

Unknown

I needed 355 during the Hulk LR to finish 34th. It was packed pretty close. The first ones are always the busiest though.

T_REZ5000

Puritas wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

You are wrong. I am not in the top 5% by any means, and I have won covers multiple times since I started trying. As stated above, I have a total of three characters over 65, two of whom are Thors so I can't use them together.

How can this possibly be true though, think about it? LR are not bracketed, they only payout the top percentile of competitors. Period. I don't care who you place in the top 25 with (or even the top 100!), if you do it at all (bagman, storm, iron man, whatever), you've proven yourself to be an exceptionally savy player of Marvel Puzzle Quest.

You're better than most people who play this game, and that matters because as I said, these only pay out X amount of users tops.

Everyone has to try and place as high as they can, but not everyone will be able to.

If you've leveraged lightening rounds for 3*'s you're in the top percentage of players.

Top percentage of players who are playing that event, and have the time for the whole event.
Its a much smaller pool than you think, and its easily doable to grab a diabolical token without using a single 3* character of your own

Exactly. Last week I started the evil LRs with a level 66 doom and a c. Mags (2/1/1). By the end I had won 9 diabolicals, a purple c. Mag, and placed 7th in an off hours mag LR. I got really lucky and pulled 4 c.mag from the diabolicals so now my c. Mags is at lvl 115 4/3/4.

I've been playing since November and that is the only 3* I have above lvl 66. So those that are saying LRs are not viable for transitioning to 3*s are completely wrong. It takes a ton of tanking, and I had to pull an all nighter, but it could be done.

But without the old LR rewards how am I supposed to advance my army of 3-4 cover 3*s? I can place top 10 in the other tourneys but that still doesn't get me black Hulk, Yellow Hood, etc. Those covers are now only reasonably attainable by being part of a 20 member alliance that includes mostly active members. But here's the catch, players that don't have leveled 3*s aren't exactly in high demand for these alliances. So where does this leave me, pay $50 per character I want to complete? I have no problem paying to buy a cover or 2 to complete a character but no way am I buying 3-5 covers per character. That's crazy.

HailMary

Rajjeq wrote:

Plus, you didn't need Top 25. 26-50 also gave you a guaranteed 3* villain in the diabolical token.

Yep. It was actually a bit of a challenge staying below #25 for one of the Loki rounds. If they nerf the Diabolical tokens, there will be exactly 8 people total who'll actually try to place in the Loki rounds.