Which transition method is better for long game life?

SnowcaTT
SnowcaTT Posts: 3,486 Chairperson of the Boards
edited March 2017 in MPQ General Discussion
This is a question of what game style would keep the -most- players playing for the -longest- time, which is a way to keep the game going (right?)

This is not a question of what you are doing, have done, or will be doing.
This is not a question of what your roster is, or what your roster will be.

This is not a question about 3*/4* transition - that will eventually come, those rewards are given out at a much higher rate and specific rewards are given out in places, they are not RNG-only divvied.

I'm seeing many people suggest (correctly) that the best way to get to 5* play is hoard/buy the latest tokens: which ignores what is happening overall to rosters and classics.

I would suggest that most players would eventually get bored of either playing the same three characters, bored of playing against the same characters over and over, or frustrated that they can't/won't hoard/buy two sets of characters.
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Comments

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think the problem is that "better" is a squishy term.

    3x470s (assuming you have the right characters) is almost certainly stronger in a given match because champ levels for 5*s are a big deal.

    But 6x450s is more flexible, which may matter for long pve grinding.

    For me, i would probably prefer 6x450s, but i may be more accepting of under-leveled but deep rosters than most people. (E.g., I had every 3* fully covered by the time 5*s were released, but i didnt have a single 166 3* or 270 4* until champion day.)
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    Without a doubt diversity is the key to fun at every tier. I Hulk bombed in the 3* tier and it got boring, Fistbuster at 4* got old, OML/PHX for nearly a year and now I'm in a spot where I have not only several 5*s to play with, but also some 4*s that are starting to get high enough to see some play as well. With the exception of some crazy PvE scaling the game is as fun as it has ever been for me right now.
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
    I would hope that my opinion on long-game healthy play would drive my roster plans. personally I think a broad roster of 450s would provide a superior playing experience. broader mmr in pvp and scaling that is level with many characters is much better than more limited pvp mmr and increased scaling based on a narrow group of top guys. i've learned you never get on top of mmr unless you get to 550s. and the few that are there get to hit each other every event. no thanks. your example of 3X 470s would actually give you 7+ 450s given reasonable cover spread. 7x 450s >>> 3x 470s in my opinion. although much more costly in iso. and less rewarding from champ levels. but this isn't about those things...
  • GurlBYE
    GurlBYE Posts: 1,218 Chairperson of the Boards
    The 5 star tier shot long term life for high end players in the foot.

    Unless they introduce tier 6 later this year and not make such a drastic leap in power there isn't much way to undo what has been done with the power leap.


    Like every transition method before, having many options at a high but not maxed level is best.

    Issue is, the latest/ classic actively fights against that unless people have been trying to cover them from the inception of the 5 star tier.

    It's really poorly done and is nothing more than, try and grab from the latest and make most of your roster obsolete, OR chase the smaller by release chance of covering a classic. Even if they divide them into packs they still didn't come up with a good distribution method.

    The only reasonable way to riff on what they were trying to seemingly accomplish with the classic/ latest would be rotation periods, either a month or every few, where a certain set of characters are the highlight (say Iron-Man, Panther and Cap Spider for like a civil war situation, then switching to masters of magic Gadgets and space or something and going with strange Thanos Phoenix Goblin, adding new sets and redividing some appropriately allowing people to prepare etc). And a good way to balance new packs would be to have two concurrently (say thanos was due in march of 2018 but got moved to a new pack, aside the old one he would have been in, that way the person looking for goblin in this example still has time to go to bat)

    Maybe it will be adopted, maybe they'll keep classic.

    But the only reasonable way to transition now, aside from whats good for the games health, is to just act like it's black friday and go ham on Latest tokens, which literally have 3 characters sharing 10% odds.

    For reference, OML and phoenix had 10% then 5% each respectively. Which is why some non whales were able to squeeze there way over successfully in that period.

    Most since have likely been dumb luck.
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    GurlBYE wrote:
    But the only reasonable way to transition now, aside from whats good for the games health, is to just act like it's black friday and go ham on Latest tokens, which literally have 3 characters sharing 10% odds.

    Latest tokens are 15%. 10% odds are for special single character tokens, like the Black Panther release one.
  • Akari
    Akari Posts: 492 Mover and Shaker
    I vote for 3 470s. By the time you hit 5* tier you're used to being forced into limited teams. 470s will make you slightly scarier on defense, and make your matches go faster. 6x 450 will give you team variety, but you're super easy pickings for everyone else also in the 5* tier, so it will really kill your PvP morale. At that point you either hunker down for the long haul, or you give up trying too hard.

    5* is the true test of willpower, period.
  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wow. I think this poll, relevant to only those so fortunate or foolish, should be in the Forum's equivalent of a champagne room.

    I'm not interested in the champagne room. There is no sex in the champagne room. Oh there's champagne in the champagne room, but you're not there for champagne. You're there for sex. And there is no sex in the champagne room.
  • CrawHammerfist
    CrawHammerfist Posts: 16 Just Dropped In
    You are at the wrong club if there is no sex in the champagne room.
  • Meander
    Meander Posts: 267 Mover and Shaker
    El Satanno wrote:
    Wow. I think this poll, relevant to only those so fortunate or foolish, should be in the Forum's equivalent of a champagne room.

    I'm not interested in the champagne room. There is no sex in the champagne room. Oh there's champagne in the champagne room, but you're not there for champagne. You're there for sex. And there is no sex in the champagne room.

    The ODB couldn't have possibly committed all then crimes. Coolio did some of that ****
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    Akari wrote:
    I vote for 3 470s. By the time you hit 5* tier you're used to being forced into limited teams. 470s will make you slightly scarier on defense, and make your matches go faster. 6x 450 will give you team variety, but you're super easy pickings for everyone else also in the 5* tier, so it will really kill your PvP morale. At that point you either hunker down for the long haul, or you give up trying too hard.

    5* is the true test of willpower, period.

    I am talking based on my own experience, I play both PvP (to 1200) and PvE and what I can say is that when I finally went full latest and I maxed my second batch of 5s (so I went from 3 to 5, and soon after to 6 champed 5s) my game experience improved IMMENSELY. Before that I had to play with the same three 5s for months (really 2, because SS at that time was really bad), and it was booooring. Back then, at first PvP was really easy, but after a while the number of 5 players incremented a lot, and it stopped being so easy, so it didn't pay off as much as I thought to go full 5 (PvE was much harder). Now with 7 champed 5s things are much fun and varied, so I am enjoying the game more (the big problem now is getting the 5s in classic I still don't have champed, this is a nightmare).

    Nowadays there is almost no difference between a 450 and a 470 level 5 in PvP, it is basically the same (yes 470 are stronger, but not that much). After 470, teams composed of 480+ are much harder to beat, but you still can (the other day I defeated a 500+480 team, but I usually run away from those).
  • HaywireII
    HaywireII Posts: 568 Critical Contributor
    Wow. I think this poll, relevant to only those so fortunate or foolish, should be in the Forum's equivalent of a champagne room.

    I think it applies to a larger segment of the population. For those of us with a healthy 4* roster it's kind of a poll of "Do I hoard 300 latest legend pulls or do I pull Classic legends from now until whenever?". Now the painful part of that is that the pull odds mean choice A is 6 to 9 months of hoarding and choice B may in fact be several years of opening Classic legends.
  • SnowcaTT
    SnowcaTT Posts: 3,486 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wow. I think this poll, relevant to only those so fortunate or foolish, should be in the Forum's equivalent of a champagne room.

    One of the reasons this poll exists is because those who are sipping the champagne are asking the bouncers to add a second velvet rope outside - need to make sure the common rabble stay out of their room.
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    HaywireII wrote:
    Wow. I think this poll, relevant to only those so fortunate or foolish, should be in the Forum's equivalent of a champagne room.

    I think it applies to a larger segment of the population. For those of us with a healthy 4* roster it's kind of a poll of "Do I hoard 300 latest legend pulls or do I pull Classic legends from now until whenever?". Now the painful part of that is that the pull odds mean choice A is 6 to 9 months of hoarding and choice B may in fact be several years of opening Classic legends.
    I think more appropriately would be "how many times do I hoard til 300+?" Pulling classics will take forever to get something usable, but hoarding once/twice/three times will land you 3/6/9 playable 5s. How much diversity do you want before you start leveling them all slowly with classic pulls?
  • Square-Chopper
    Square-Chopper Posts: 54 Match Maker
    I voted more champed 450, because I was one of those people stuck playing nothing but OML/PNX for like 8 or 9 months and while I was able to win stuff, it was ridiculously boring. Having said that, I've completely written off any of the 5*'s that I didn't get covered before they went to classics because it's just too frustrating and I've already had to sell too many dupes.

    At the end of the day, I feel like it matters very little which method is "better" because classics are so incredibly unreliable for the 5* transition that they're not worth bothering with, IMO. They're good for the 3*-4* transition or for those who have all the classic 5* covered and need champ levels only, but that's about it.

    Contrary to popular opinion on the forum, you don't necessarily have to hoard 300 pulls to champ latest legends, you just need to play for every last cp and lt available and pull from latest exclusively. I couldn't hoard if I wanted to cause I'm just not wired that way and I've still been able to champ every 5* since IM46 by pulling from latest. Obviously YMMV.
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    I've been having a decent amount of luck either pulling from Latest or Classics, exclusively at any particular time. I started this when I had a decent number of covers in Black Bolt - I decided I wanted him more than anything else. I focused exclusively on Latest (I did this when the pack was Bolt, Widow, Strange,) and ended up with a 13 cover Bolt, 8 in Widow, and I think 7 in Strange. I then went back to Classics (for only a week, since I just made it,) then once Bolt rotated out, I focused entirely on Latest. That time I maxed out Widow pretty quickly, about three weeks in, so I spent my CP on Classics. I ended that with 10 covers in Strange, 5 in Thanos.

    I then went back to Classics, and I did reasonably well - got four (!) more covers for my OML, bringing him up to a perfect 4/4/4 (with the yellow cover about six weeks away,) I got two for PHX, two Bolt covers (my first max 5*!) and some others - a Hulk, BSS, and IM46. I had to trash two 5* covers that I had 5 in - a pity, but that's the way it goes. I was spending CP pretty until Monday.

    Now I'm back to latest, hoping to max out Strange. It will probably be pretty easy, to be honest, but I want a good head start on Thanos and BP as well. If I don't end up with eight or more in Thanos, I'll probably stop spending CP much earlier this time, probably the full two weeks between when the new one is introduced and he goes into tokens.
  • kidicarus
    kidicarus Posts: 420 Mover and Shaker
    3 x 470 is roughly 3 x 33 covers. For napkin math that's 99 covers at 15% would mean about 660 draws. I don't know about long game life but 660 draws from latest pool is 16500cp. That's either a lot of hoarding or a lot of stark buy clubs. I'd assume resource limitation so snowcatt must be asking about a player who's hoarding, and if you're hoarding that's an insane amount of delayed gratification and stunted roster growth.

    Me personally, I'm also doing similarly to what Grimskald is doing above as I'm lucky enough to have dr S already champed and 1 cover away from champing thanos so no rush on drawing from latest tokens. With my classic draws, I can fatten my existing champ 5*s while I wait for something more interesting in the latest pool.
  • JablesMc
    JablesMc Posts: 235 Tile Toppler
    GrimSkald wrote:
    I've been having a decent amount of luck either pulling from Latest or Classics, exclusively at any particular time. I started this when I had a decent number of covers in Black Bolt - I decided I wanted him more than anything else. I focused exclusively on Latest (I did this when the pack was Bolt, Widow, Strange,) and ended up with a 13 cover Bolt, 8 in Widow, and I think 7 in Strange. I then went back to Classics (for only a week, since I just made it,) then once Bolt rotated out, I focused entirely on Latest. That time I maxed out Widow pretty quickly, about three weeks in, so I spent my CP on Classics. I ended that with 10 covers in Strange, 5 in Thanos.

    I then went back to Classics, and I did reasonably well - got four (!) more covers for my OML, bringing him up to a perfect 4/4/4 (with the yellow cover about six weeks away,) I got two for PHX, two Bolt covers (my first max 5*!) and some others - a Hulk, BSS, and IM46. I had to trash two 5* covers that I had 5 in - a pity, but that's the way it goes. I was spending CP pretty until Monday.

    Now I'm back to latest, hoping to max out Strange. It will probably be pretty easy, to be honest, but I want a good head start on Thanos and BP as well. If I don't end up with eight or more in Thanos, I'll probably stop spending CP much earlier this time, probably the full two weeks between when the new one is introduced and he goes into tokens.
    How do you get so many lt/cp? I max prog every PVE and get at least 575 every PVP, with VIP, and I'm nowhere near the ability to do as many pulls as this.

    Edit: either that, or RNGesus is WAAAAY nicer to you...
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    JablesMc wrote:
    GrimSkald wrote:
    I've been having a decent amount of luck either pulling from Latest or Classics, exclusively at any particular time. I started this when I had a decent number of covers in Black Bolt - I decided I wanted him more than anything else. I focused exclusively on Latest (I did this when the pack was Bolt, Widow, Strange,) and ended up with a 13 cover Bolt, 8 in Widow, and I think 7 in Strange. I then went back to Classics (for only a week, since I just made it,) then once Bolt rotated out, I focused entirely on Latest. That time I maxed out Widow pretty quickly, about three weeks in, so I spent my CP on Classics. I ended that with 10 covers in Strange, 5 in Thanos.

    I then went back to Classics, and I did reasonably well - got four (!) more covers for my OML, bringing him up to a perfect 4/4/4 (with the yellow cover about six weeks away,) I got two for PHX, two Bolt covers (my first max 5*!) and some others - a Hulk, BSS, and IM46. I had to trash two 5* covers that I had 5 in - a pity, but that's the way it goes. I was spending CP pretty until Monday.

    Now I'm back to latest, hoping to max out Strange. It will probably be pretty easy, to be honest, but I want a good head start on Thanos and BP as well. If I don't end up with eight or more in Thanos, I'll probably stop spending CP much earlier this time, probably the full two weeks between when the new one is introduced and he goes into tokens.
    How do you get so many lt/cp? I max prog every PVE and get at least 575 every PVP, with VIP, and I'm nowhere near the ability to do as many pulls as this.

    Edit: either that, or RNGesus is WAAAAY nicer to you...
    1200 each PVP, a ton of champed 4*s, all 3*s champed.
    It adds up.
  • SnowcaTT
    SnowcaTT Posts: 3,486 Chairperson of the Boards
    See devs, you missed a word. See all those people that voted yes to "more champed characters at lower levels"?

    I think you missed the word "More". -MORE- characters, for better variety. Having fewer characters in your tokens kind of defeats that purpose.
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    SnowcaTT wrote:
    See devs, you missed a word. See all those people that voted yes to "more champed characters at lower levels"?

    I think you missed the word "More". -MORE- characters, for better variety. Having fewer characters in your tokens kind of defeats that purpose.
    Oh please, you were clearly talking about champed characters, and this change will get players champed characters sooner. If you are trying to champ a new 5 to give you more diversity to you pull from the larger classic pool that has all the characters available? Or do you pull from the "vaulted" Latest pool that has a select few number of characters. It's the same thing. Not only will this change result in more champs of the 12 newest 4*s, it will also allow people to champ 1 additional older 4* sooner by setting it as their bonus.

    Unless you are trying to say that people would rather have 40+ characters at 4 covers each than 12 characters at 13 each...... Don't be ridiculous.