New Feature: Bonus Heroes! *Updated (3/1/17)

n25philly

broll wrote:

madok wrote:

Really wish they would have included 2*s in the bonus characters just to help with our farms to help build all the required ISO. It would have offset what has felt like a nerf to 2* drops in LRs as well.

You really want them to have make only 3 2* available?

They vault them all but moonstone. The jokes are finally real!

Dayv

Vhailorx wrote:

Everyone likes the favorites system. Who wouldn't, it's 5% more covers of our choice. That's great! this game has been absolutely desperate for such a mechanic for years.

The problem is tying that very positive change to the new character vaulting system. Dilution was a real issue. But bonus heroes would go a long way towards mitigating it. Why then ALSO make this massive change to the way tokens work? (A change that just happens to appear likely to substantially slow down the rate at which vets can get their older champs up into the 340+ 4* champ promise land, and also makes long term hoard much less efficient.) Demi is fiddling with a lot of different levers all at once, and IMO the most rational explanation for makings changes this way is that they want to obfuscate of the more player-unfriendly changes by doing everything at the same time.

This, right here. All of this.

Introduced on its own, Bonus Heroes would be a new feature receiving a warm welcome from nearly 100% of players. Tied to a massive and for many players deeply upsetting change in cover availability, it stops feeling like a great new reward stream and starts to look like an inadequate apology for the return of cover vaulting.

Dayv

New McG wrote:

The choice was between "keep a diluted 4* token pool" and "limit it by vaulting older 4*" They picked a side, and it allows for focused fire toward roster building.

That implies those were the only two possible options. Lots of other plans could have hit the table. This could be one of the changes they surveyed players (customers) on in advance. Forum the looks of it, many players would have strongly voted against the return of cover vaulting. This is unsurprising, it was certainly not loved the last time around.

Imagine the outcry if they implement bonus characters, keep the token pool the same as it was, and then someone draws a 6th or greater cover on a non-covered 4* from a legendary, and then get a bonus cover that's also fits that description. It would be "what's the point of bonus covers if they're as useless as the diluted tokens we get them from?"

There is absolutely nothing in cover vaulting to prevent the situation you describe here. The sixth-cover problem is unchanged no matter how deep the pool of characters is.

kidicarus

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for whales - they must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that they'll have trouble max champing.

WalrusGooner

I am a mostly F2P (spent $37US on the game total) on day 362, with 13 2* (all but my farmed Hawkeye champed), 39 3* (10 champed), 19 4* (most with one cover, highest with 6), and no 5*. The money I have spent on this game so far has been in service of embracing both the Champion system and the PVE/DDQ Essential system, and thus ensuring I can roster, and eventually properly cover, all 2*, 3*, and 4*. With particular regard to 4*, lacking the ability/will to roster them all at this time, I've focused on rostering those that the player base rates highly -- Peggy, RHulk, Cyke, etc. (RNGesus has not blessed me with an Iceman just yet.) The Bonus Heroes change helps some with this. The vaulting change, however, most certainly does not. When the time comes for me to make my 4* transition, I will have a very hard time properly covering those 4* I've identified as most helpful to me, coupled with pressure to find roster space for and then champ newer 4* that may not be useful to me at all. I'll likely continue my existing play habits (DDQ and 2-4 clears of PVE) for now, but I was already looking ahead to the 4* transition and thinking it was going to be painfully slow. Prioritizing a wide roster over a deep one, it now feels like that transition will be even slower, and may bring me to a point where I rather quickly decide to move on.

OneLastGambit

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

GurlBYE

OneLastGambit wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

D O W N wrote:

Is the bonus feature even working for everyone?? It seemed fine the first day, but in the last 24 hours I've received zero Bonus heroes from multiple 3 star pulls (3 of them from Elite Tokens, 4 from Heroic Packs) and 1 4 star pull from a Latest Legends pack.

Pretty annoying- I even rebooted the app before that Latest Legends pack pull.

Anybody else seeing this today?

It's random so in theory it's possible to go forever without getting a bonus hero. Yay RNG!

Its equally possible to get a bonus with every pull

Possible. Sure.

Likely, Not a shot.

10 draws.

(all).05^10= Abysmally low. since it's -14 it's lower than a hundreth of a percent. lets not even go further down than that.

(none).95^10=59%

But regardless each draw is still 5%

There should have without question been some sort of sub system or something.
Other games have started using bad luck preventative systems that essentially raise the occurrence of a rare/unlikely thing the longer that thing goes without happening.

If they even programmed it to go up .5% every-time someone didn't draw the "optimal" thing from a type of token (and with vaults there aren't many left) it'd make a difference.
Otherwise it's still luck based progression and we will still see threads about how terrible it is with people saying how great it is all based on anecdotes.

madok

n25philly wrote:

broll wrote:

madok wrote:

Really wish they would have included 2*s in the bonus characters just to help with our farms to help build all the required ISO. It would have offset what has felt like a nerf to 2* drops in LRs as well.

You really want them to have make only 3 2* available?

They vault them all but moonstone. The jokes are finally real!

No. Vault them all but Bagman! Who doesn't want more LTs?

n25philly

madok wrote:

n25philly wrote:

broll wrote:

madok wrote:

Really wish they would have included 2*s in the bonus characters just to help with our farms to help build all the required ISO. It would have offset what has felt like a nerf to 2* drops in LRs as well.

You really want them to have make only 3 2* available?

They vault them all but moonstone. The jokes are finally real!

No. Vault them all but Bagman! Who doesn't want more LTs?

Bagman would be nice since I get like 1 cover every 6 months, but it would be a lot funnier with moonstone considering how many times we've all said she is all we get from tokens.

Jaedenkaal

OneLastGambit wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

You can still get them in the very event in which they are required, at the very worst. At SCL 5-6 or something.

n25philly

Jaedenkaal wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

You can still get them in the very event in which they are required, at the very worst. At SCL 5-6 or something.

And for those of us who have never getting a 4* from progression?

GurlBYE

n25philly wrote:

Jaedenkaal wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

You can still get them in the very event in which they are required, at the very worst. At SCL 5-6 or something.

And for those of us who have never getting a 4* from progression?

It's a side effect of most people here being CL7 and higher.
It's easy to forget the game still didn't make the path behind this smother. And it's super relevant.


What's really evident is how this change of blocking half the 4's was to slow down of 4 champs for older players (ones even past where I am)

Issue is the damage is done. When medusa came out, I saw a certain players roster who had all of the characters in game at their max champ levels, including 5's.

They need to open the nodes up for required characters now. Either similar to boss fights, or allowing you to go in handicapped with 2 characters or something

broll

GurlBYE wrote:

n25philly wrote:

And for those of us who have never getting a 4* from progression?

It's a side effect of most people here being CL7 and higher.
It's easy to forget the game still didn't make the path behind this smother. And it's super relevant.

Not to mention once they change scaling to be SCL based, most new players won't be able to clear SCL 7 until they have champed some of the flavor of the month ones, so they will be behind that 8 ball immediately. Will probably be the same problem for the newest players getting 3*s as well

Wjohnson992

OneLastGambit wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

That would be a total disaster. If Rulk/Cyke/Iceman arent already highly champed to be able to work in pvp then they are totally worthless to everyone if they'll never even able to be rewarded in pve. PVE is the best way to get these "vaulted" characters now. If you take that away then they are basically all Dino or Howard.

Wjohnson992

broll wrote:

GurlBYE wrote:

n25philly wrote:

And for those of us who have never getting a 4* from progression?

It's a side effect of most people here being CL7 and higher.
It's easy to forget the game still didn't make the path behind this smother. And it's super relevant.

Not to mention once they change scaling to be SCL based, most new players won't be able to clear SCL 7 until they have champed some of the flavor of the month ones, so they will be behind that 8 ball immediately. Will probably be the same problem for the newest players getting 3*s as well

Whats classed as "new" player? Would they even be eligible to enter SCL7?

wade66

Full disclosure: I am in the group of players this helps the most, having all but 12 covered 4 star characters, 8 of which being the most recent releases.

This tries to solve to many problems with the least amount of work. People complain about new character releases because it takes forever to get them covered to usable levels, hence the tokens now focusing on the newest ones. While the favorite system is a means to give player control over an infinitesimal portion of the RNG locked progression system without flooding the game to appease the players.

I personally don't see how this benefits them financially like many people claim, as removing the characters from tokens essentially removes them from the marketplace, effectively making them sold out. They can't profit off what they can't sell. And them making targeted progression needed to have a counter of some sort to balance everything out.

Personally, my solution would have been to change heroic tokens, keeping half of the three star characters and all but the newest four stars. Keep the current unvaulted four stars in the legendary tokens. Elite tokens could house the other half of the three star pool, as well as the two stars. Event tokens could be left as they were.

This gives us standard tokens that are all encompassing, elites that have 2 and 3 stars, heroic that have 3 and 4 stars, and the legendary for 4 and 5 stars. The odds would need to be adjusted of course, as well as the distribution of tokens to prevent oversaturation.

Jaedenkaal

n25philly wrote:

Jaedenkaal wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

I think many of the veterans already knew about bonus heroes through the "deep web" months before it was finally introduced. Many of us were sincerely looking forward to it. I think we were looking forward to it because we didn't think it would be tied to vaulted covers.

I don't really have much to add to this discussion. Many of the points elucidated so far in this thread correspond to mine - I just want to raise my hand and say - me too, I feel the pain.

Personally, even though I've spent money here and there i'm probably 99% F2p. I've champed all 4* heroes except for agent venom, danvers, mordo and Coulson through sheer will and determination. So yeah, they're next in line for champing. I champed everyone so as not to waste a single pull and under the new system every cover will also be a champion level for me. It's still a major bummer not making significant progress on the rest of my roster.

Also, how are newer players going to deal with essential nodes? if you vault heroes behind a bonus system, just how lucky will they have to be to have the required hero for an event if they're starting out. Even with pvp, where every event is a 3* essential, sure they could use a loaner but they will never catch up with those guys with maxed vaulted 3* heroes. Won't this make those events more inaccessible for them?

I even feel sorry for KDN - he must have some vaulted dupe champed 4*s that he'll have trouble max champing.

This is definitely an unintended side effect of the new system. Devs better make sure that only the new 12 will be essential for PVE otherwise a HUGE amount of people wont be able to compete.

You can still get them in the very event in which they are required, at the very worst. At SCL 5-6 or something.

And for those of us who have never getting a 4* from progression?

Sorry, I was focused on the bolded part that was referring to 3*s. Yes, the 4*s will be harder to obtain if they're not your favourite. Save taco tokens until you have a whole bunch and there's a 4* you want in the vault? Many will also be available from 3* champion rewards.

Getting the progression 4* in SCL7 isn't nearly as hard as getting the final 15 CP, you can generally get it before the last day of the event if you beat all the other missions in previous days 2-3 times, I would say. Your ability to do that may vary by event and/or time allocated.

n25philly

wade66 wrote:

Full disclosure: I am in the group of players this helps the most, having all but 12 covered 4 star characters, 8 of which being the most recent releases.

This tries to solve to many problems with the least amount of work. People complain about new character releases because it takes forever to get them covered to usable levels, hence the tokens now focusing on the newest ones. While the favorite system is a means to give player control over an infinitesimal portion of the RNG locked progression system without flooding the game to appease the players.

I personally don't see how this benefits them financially like many people claim, as removing the characters from tokens essentially removes them from the marketplace, effectively making them sold out. They can't profit off what they can't sell. And them making targeted progression needed to have a counter of some sort to balance everything out.

Personally, my solution would have been to change heroic tokens, keeping half of the three star characters and all but the newest four stars. Keep the current unvaulted four stars in the legendary tokens. Elite tokens could house the other half of the three star pool, as well as the two stars. Event tokens could be left as they were.

This gives us standard tokens that are all encompassing, elites that have 2 and 3 stars, heroic that have 3 and 4 stars, and the legendary for 4 and 5 stars. The odds would need to be adjusted of course, as well as the distribution of tokens to prevent oversaturation.

They profit from the ticking clock they just created. You can only get the latest twelve from tokens, and they are only available for a limited time only. The first 2 are going to rotate out in around a week. Their hope is that someone who is close to champing them come next week but short on resources will spend to get the resources they need before they are banished from being worthy. That's where they plan to make money. Yes, the older characters are no longer there to entice, but there is no reason to rush to do anything with them so people can take their time and is will could take years to champ them. Now every new character has a ticking clock you need to beat. It's that urgency that will either push people to spend or leave them in the dust.

chopatron

I rarely ever register a forum account to post, but I am REALLY enjoying this game. I'm a day 60 player. Full champed 2*, full rostered 3* with im40, strange, 3clops, daken, and cage champed (working on fist). 2* was a ton of fun. 3* has also been a ton of fun to build up and create the base roster. I like that. Build a base as an investment and get rewarded later while using your favorite/strongest. I place top 3 in every PVE and top 10 every PVP. The flow of rewards are great (aside from progression for mid tier players like me in PVP). I get to better my roster pretty much every day.

I was looking forward to slowly building up Prof x to play some charlies angels. Was looking forward to building up hulkbuster and rhulk. I was looking forward very much to the entire 4* tier and progressing as a whole. Thats the biggest thing I see most people missing in these posts. Sure... 20 LT = 1 4* of choice now... thats awesome, but before 20 LT could have meant 2 or 3 or even 4 covers for top tier 4*s. The tokens being for the same champ/hero doesn't really make a difference to me. On a whole I would get much stronger and had tons of options. The broad roster also helped with PVE essentials and now the ddq nodes.

20 LL = 1x top tier 4* classic. 20x 25cp is 500cp per cover for 1 of them (rhulk/hb/etc/etc). that's 6,500cp to get 13 tier 1 classic 4*s. If you only favorite 1 then its 6,500cp for 13 cover rhulk/iceman/hb etc. Six thousand five hundred. I will have 13 cover champed 5*'s before I have a tier 1 classic 4*. So now out of all those choices of teams I would have been working towards creating to play. I am now progressing into my fav 4* (peggy) b/c she's in the pool and actually competitive/playable + my favorite 5* (thanos). Thats my end game progression atm. 2 champs lol. At that price the 4* tier doesn't even exist to me atm. Hopefullly i can get to 100+ pulls before peggy rotates to have a decent chance at her, the system changes (most likely), or you guys start releasing new champ/heroes that are actually competitive.

The only play I see atm is champing the current 12 to maximize champ rewards on them + favorite the strongest (peggy) + your choice 5*. All the cool top tier classic 4* are extinct for people like me now. I'm sure its actually pretty neat to only champ 1-2 4* every month or 2 and stay in min/max champ rewards, but it also sucks vsing champ rhulks/hb/iceman with your garbage tier champs and have near 0 chance of ever getting any of them.

Is the favorite system + rotating vaults or giving a choice of 4-5 vaults just too easy to stack covers? I'm curious to hear the fix. Hopefully its a mix of the favorite system + fixing the problem with 4*. The favorite system is actually great. Getting competitive 5*s before 4* is not great and doesn't make any sense.

Crowl

DayvBang wrote:

New McG wrote:

The choice was between "keep a diluted 4* token pool" and "limit it by vaulting older 4*" They picked a side, and it allows for focused fire toward roster building.

That implies those were the only two possible options. Lots of other plans could have hit the table. This could be one of the changes they surveyed players (customers) on in advance. Forum the looks of it, many players would have strongly voted against the return of cover vaulting. This is unsurprising, it was certainly not loved the last time around.

Even if they decided that vaulting had to happen, they could have used a scalpel instead of a chainsaw, split the classic 4*s into two groups and have tokens contain one of those two groups plus the latest 12, swap the classic group around from season to season and we still benefit from a depth of roster and regular champ rewards on more than just the latest ones.