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

shadowyoshi

After following this thread and not commenting I have two suggestions:

1. Go back to the old tokens and bonus heroes can only be from the blessed 12. This still helps everyone cover the preferred from the latest while leaving everyone available from tokens.

2. Keep system as is now but add a new token at 25 CP that includes one 5* character at 25CP (rotate the character each season) and all the old characters.

Crowl

GurlBYE wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

i think it'd help if they ~halved the latest 4* pull rate and divided the other half up among the older ones. give or take on the numbers. maybe 60% newer and 40% older or something. you'd get less older ones, but not 0. and still would be easier than before to cover latests. lots of ways to handle it, but thats my idea. I don't like splitting classics/latests (exactly opposite of what I'm trying to do), and I don't like rotations. I'd mind less if my top 4s had about 20 more levels. but I need those 20 more levels to take less than a year please.

You're speaking strictly legendaries right?

I wish they'd do something about heroics, that involved lowering the 2 star rate if anything, even slightly would make a huge difference so long as 4 got some of that %.

Reworking heroics is a separate issue and either it or a new 3*/4* is what is really needed to address the dilution issue alongside a 4* version of the Big Enchilada in DDQ, as it stands right now the primary token for obtaining 4*s is the LT and thus it is important for them to get that fixed as soon as possible before applying other methods of fixing the dilution problem.

Crowl

sh81 wrote:

If the strike rate on bonus heroes was more like 20% than 5%, would anyone have an issue with the vaulting?

Yes, I would, it would reduce the impact of the change but wouldn't address the issue of multiple older 4*s being worth building and being out of reach of most people.

Crowl

sh81 wrote:

I guess a lot comes down to your attitude/expectations.

As it is, under the old rules, I completely expect to pick up useless covers. Getting a useful cover is far rarer, and getting one for a character I specifically desire is as likely as me finding Unicorn poop.

Given the dilution in the vault, it will take me forever to get meaningful progress in the characters I am really interested in.

Under Bonus Heroes? Already Ive picked up covers I actually want. If the strike rate was increased? It could only be an improvement for me, in the position I am. I would certainly develop my 4* roster with more speed.

I have every 3* character, all but one champed, but a near useless 4* roster. Stepping up, under an increased Bonus heroes hit rate, is far quicker and more preferable than RNG in a huge vault.

I can focus on building new characters faster, the smaller vault being a huge benefit for them, while simultaneously picking up covers on old characters I want to develop.

Yes, the champ rewards suffer - but to be honest they are not even a consideration to me at my stage in the game and should really be a secondary concern anyway (IMO).

If you have no usable 4*s right now then surely almost any 4* cover would be a useful one to you, unless you are actively avoiding rostering particular characters, which is a decision you would have made counter to the previous benefits they provided.

Getting a specific cover would be slower under the old system, but specific is not the same as usable for most rosters and if you are unlucky with bonus heroes you could actually end up progressing far slower since it is rng on top of rng.

Tony_Foot

Forgetting all the 4* stuff for a second, there's simply no reason at all to vault half the 3* on rotation or at all. It's not diluted, they come fast enough through tokens (I wish those elites were in play when I started). If I was to start a new account tomorrow my limiting factor for 3*s would be I couldn't earn enough ISO fast enough, not dilution.

JHawkInc

Tony Foot wrote:

Forgetting all the 4* stuff for a second, there's simply no reason at all to vault half the 3* on rotation or at all. It's not diluted, they come fast enough through tokens (I wish those elites were in play when I started). If I was to start a new account tomorrow my limiting factor for 3*s would be I couldn't earn enough ISO fast enough, not dilution.

I think the 3*s are a different story. You're right, dilution isn't the issue.

It's about character quality, and the energy (time/effort) required to revamp characters.

Who's IN? Strange. Thanos. IM40. GSBW. Cap. Cyke. IF. KK. Loki. Cage. Deadpool. Patch. Switch. Blade. Falcon. All solid characters. Spidey/Daredevil/Panter aren't great, but they're all big names and in the MCU.

Who's MISSING? Beast. Bullseye. Captain Marvel. Magneto. Colossus. Daken. Doom. Ock. Gamora. Torch. Mystique. Psylocke. Quicksilver. Rags. Sentry. She-Hulk. Storm. Hood. Hulk. Punisher. Thor. Vision.

For the most part, the characters IN are all better than the characters MISSING. There are some exceptions (Spidey is a big name, but not the best outside of his stun, Magneto's a beast, Hood is just as good support as Loki, Hulk/Storm are necessary for the classic Winfinite team, you could argue Bullseye has more niche use than Daredevil, etc)

It feels like they're quietly sweeping away some of the "less good" 3*s. They may be doing this to increase player enjoyment, as the odds (especially for new players who are building a roster) of pulling a good character are now higher. But if they'd put some effort into making Colossus and Psylocke less ****, they might not need to worry about it in the first place.

I agree overall, there are plenty enough 3*s and they don't need vaulting, but I think their situation is less about dilution and more about avoiding old characters that need a re-design (instead of, you know, re-designing them).

Landale

AlphaNik wrote:

I think it should be higher than 5% too. Even different based on rarity. 20% for 3*, 15% for 4*, 10% for 5*. (Example)

I play Destiny a bit, and one of the items they introduced a while back was called "3 of coins" where before each boss or PvP match you could consume a coin to get an increased chance at a rare item drop. You could keep repeating this procedure (consume item, fight boss/PvP) and each time that you did not get that rare item, the odds continually would increase until it would finally drop, at which point the game would reset your 3oC odds back to 0.

I would personally like the idea of this in this instance too. For example, the first pull is 5% odds, the second is 10%, the third is 15%, etc. until you finally pull a bonus hero, at which point the odds get reset back to 5%. If they want to set some kind of arbitrary maximum (like 30-40%) I think that would be OK too. Having an increasingly better chance at getting the bonus heroes you want would be a nice middle ground, IMO.

Crowl

Landale wrote:

I play Destiny a bit, and one of the items they introduced a while back was called "3 of coins" where before each boss or PvP match you could consume a coin to get an increased chance at a rare item drop. You could keep repeating this procedure (consume item, fight boss/PvP) and each time that you did not get that rare item, the odds continually would increase until it would finally drop, at which point the game would reset your 3oC odds back to 0.

I would personally like the idea of this in this instance too. For example, the first pull is 5% odds, the second is 10%, the third is 15%, etc. until you finally pull a bonus hero, at which point the odds get reset back to 5%. If they want to set some kind of arbitrary maximum (like 30-40%) I think that would be OK too. Having an increasingly better chance at getting the bonus heroes you want would be a nice middle ground, IMO.

Hearthstone is another game that takes that kind of approach with a pity timer, something like this would be ideal for bonus heroes and 5* covers in MPQ as it would smooth out the horrendously bad runs some people can go on which practically wreck their chances of progressing given how reliant we are on rng in the endgame.

nickaraxnos

Brigby wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

It has been two weeks. Brigby?

*Hope you don't mind the copy-and-paste of my response from another thread

The intent behind Bonus Heroes, and the removal of older 3 and 4-Star characters from packs, was to reduce pack dilution and provide a way for players to acquire newer characters faster. Having said that though, the team recognizes the community concern regarding older 3 and 4-Star progression, and has decided to start exploring several options to try and alleviate those concerns.

Keep in mind that this is still exploration, and nothing is 100% guaranteed, but here are some of the ideas that the team is investigating:

- A new store containing older 3 and 4-Star characters - Rotations for removed 3 and 4-Star characters - A new vault containing older 3 and 4-Star characters

As you can tell, these ideas are sparse in detail, as the team is still figuring out which could work the best. Once we have more information to provide, we'll be sure to update the community.

First of all, it is good that the devs are thinking how to fix this mess they started BUT

Let's see the problems we had and the solutions they are thinking (i am not sure if i understand them correctly)

1) Dilution. Too many characters are now in play and are hard to get them
What did they do for that? They practically decided to deny us to have them all unless we pay few thousands of dollars. Or play to infinity
How? By vaulting them
It's kind of funny. Is like you are having a headache and the doctor suggests to cut it off.

2) Unusable covers (a sixth cover of an unchamped character)
What did they do for that? Nothing. Not only the problem remains but it is even worse now because out of 12 characters it is easier to get a cover you can't use.

3) Lack of iso. It was difficult to have the iso that is needed to champ your characters. Even if someone wants to buy iso with money the prices are ridiculous.
What did they do for that? They gave us clearance levels, adds that award us with some iso and new ddq. Good changes that helped until the new system. Now everyone is complaining that covers from the 'great' 12 are coming so fast they can't afford it

4) High difficulty. Lot of people don't recommend the game cause it is very difficult for a newbie to catch up unless he is rich.
What did they do for that? but of-course they made it MORE difficult.
How? By vaulting not only the older 4* but also the old 3*.

Now they seem to understand that the majority of their clients are not happy. Good.
So they are reading our suggestions, they are discussing it for 2 weeks and this is what they came up with

1) A new store containing older 3 and 4-Star characters
That, i am not sure i understand how will work. Store meaning real money? Meaning spending cp for a store containing 3*? Does nothing for problems 2,3,4.

2) Rotations for removed 3 and 4-Star characters
It does nothing for problems 2,3,4 and i doubt if it helps for problem 1. Because now you have a little bit of vaulting and a little bit of dilution

3) A new vault containing older 3 and 4-Star characters
Great guys another vault. With cheap prices i imagine. Does nothing for problems 2,3,4. Except that now we will have another problem. Lack of hp

Only one question. Why is it so difficult to make easy changes that helps the majority of your clients?
Happy clients equals more money

Alsmir

The idea is to make players frustrated enough to spend money, but not enough to quit.

I've seen that process executed in many different games. In the long run thay all just die or reach stagnation, where devs push minimal updates, while whales are too addicted to quit and keep spending money.

broll

Brigby wrote:

*Hope you don't mind the copy-and-paste of my response from another thread

The intent behind Bonus Heroes, and the removal of older 3 and 4-Star characters from packs, was to reduce pack dilution and provide a way for players to acquire newer characters faster. Having said that though, the team recognizes the community concern regarding older 3 and 4-Star progression, and has decided to start exploring several options to try and alleviate those concerns.

Keep in mind that this is still exploration, and nothing is 100% guaranteed, but here are some of the ideas that the team is investigating:

- A new store containing older 3 and 4-Star characters - Rotations for removed 3 and 4-Star characters - A new vault containing older 3 and 4-Star characters

As you can tell, these ideas are sparse in detail, as the team is still figuring out which could work the best. Once we have more information to provide, we'll be sure to update the community.

I'm curious to here what the cost would be of the new store containing older 3* and 4*s. This seems like an odd choice to me. Few people were complaining about 3* being vaulted due to the promised rotation. Not saying this is bad, just kinda weird.

You already promised rotations for 3* so I'm confused why you mentioned rotations for vaulted 3* and 4*. I'm OK with rotating 4*s as a fix.

As for a new vault, I'd have to see it, but off hand based on the previous mini vaults I can't say I like this idea. This seems like it would be the devs price gauging instead of actually fixing. Oh you want the vaulted characters? Open your wallets...

AlluAllu

Before vaulting I was ready to retire after champing all 3-stars (halfway done currently). Move to the 4-star land just seemed to require insane amount of time and grinding. Now that there are only 12, I can look forward to having fun in the near future.

Crowl

sh81 wrote:

What I mean is, there are so many 4* characters my roster has developed rather evenly - meaning virtually none are of any use.

I would much prefer to target characters for development than continue in this vein.

I have rostered almost all 4*s, so not many covers are wasted, but even then they arent particularly "useful" either thanks to being rather thinly spread around.

That is actually a good position to be in though and one that would improve with each 4* you eventually championed even if the characters may not be that useful to you, the bad times are when you are forced to hoard just to avoid wasting too many covers and those will be much more frequent under the new system.

Reecoh

JHawkInc wrote:

Tony Foot wrote:

Forgetting all the 4* stuff for a second, there's simply no reason at all to vault half the 3* on rotation or at all. It's not diluted, they come fast enough through tokens (I wish those elites were in play when I started). If I was to start a new account tomorrow my limiting factor for 3*s would be I couldn't earn enough ISO fast enough, not dilution.

I think the 3*s are a different story. You're right, dilution isn't the issue.

It's about character quality, and the energy (time/effort) required to revamp characters.

Who's IN? Strange. Thanos. IM40. GSBW. Cap. Cyke. IF. KK. Loki. Cage. Deadpool. Patch. Switch. Blade. Falcon. All solid characters. Spidey/Daredevil/Panter aren't great, but they're all big names and in the MCU.

Who's MISSING? Beast. Bullseye. Captain Marvel. Magneto. Colossus. Daken. Doom. Ock. Gamora. Torch. Mystique. Psylocke. Quicksilver. Rags. Sentry. She-Hulk. Storm. Hood. Hulk. Punisher. Thor. Vision.

For the most part, the characters IN are all better than the characters MISSING. There are some exceptions (Spidey is a big name, but not the best outside of his stun, Magneto's a beast, Hood is just as good support as Loki, Hulk/Storm are necessary for the classic Winfinite team, you could argue Bullseye has more niche use than Daredevil, etc)

It feels like they're quietly sweeping away some of the "less good" 3*s. They may be doing this to increase player enjoyment, as the odds (especially for new players who are building a roster) of pulling a good character are now higher. But if they'd put some effort into making Colossus and Psylocke less tinykitty, they might not need to worry about it in the first place.

I agree overall, there are plenty enough 3*s and they don't need vaulting, but I think their situation is less about dilution and more about avoiding old characters that need a re-design (instead of, you know, re-designing them).

I wouldn't mind if they removed all of the 3*s that are awarded by 2* champs in order to incentivize anyone not running a 2* farm to ramp one up and then keep all of the orphaned 3*s in the packs. That doesn't work for the 4*s, but the 2*s cycle often enough that I think it would fine.

Alsmir

AlluAllu wrote:

Before vaulting I was ready to retire after champing all 3-stars (halfway done currently). Move to the 4-star land just seemed to require insane amount of time and grinding. Now that there are only 12, I can look forward to having fun in the near future.

What's the chance that you won't get enough covers to champ them before they rotate out?

Magic

AlluAllu wrote:

Before vaulting I was ready to retire after champing all 3-stars (halfway done currently). Move to the 4-star land just seemed to require insane amount of time and grinding. Now that there are only 12, I can look forward to having fun in the near future.

And do you really think you will have fun when you have to pair Riri and Agent Venom against Rhulk or Iceman that many players have championed already? I know there is Carol and Medusa and Wasp but they will not be boosted every week.

kyo28

Brigby, thanks for the feedback!

AlluAllu wrote:

Before vaulting I was ready to retire after champing all 3-stars (halfway done currently). Move to the 4-star land just seemed to require insane amount of time and grinding. Now that there are only 12, I can look forward to having fun in the near future.

I can see how at short term it might look like that but bear with me as I was in your shoes not that long ago (now I have 3 champed 4*s).


1. You'll get covers faster for the 12 recent 4*s, but you run the risk of not having them fully covered by the time they rotate out and/or get unusable covers (e.g. a 1/5/5 character and you keep pulling the two colours you don't need)

2. What was the biggest hurdle for me to jump from 3* to 4* is not the missing covers but the . No seriously, that was a major, major issue for me. After pumping some 127.500 into a bunch of 3*s, I all of a sudden had to start saving up 378.500 per character! Don't underestimate that effort! Believe me, by the time I had the required to champ my first, I had a bunch of CP and LT saved up and had no problem pulling enough covers to champ one, then I started hoarding again. You'll definitely hit that wall!

3. Finally, it might seem fun to build up Wasp or Riri, get their covers faster and pump some into them ... until you need to use them to fight Rulk, Iceman, Jean Grey, Cyclops, FemThor, Prof X, etc. You'll be stuck with underpowered, piss-poor 4*s with no left and barely a chance to build one of the better older 4*s because their covers are behind lock and key.

So I understand your intitial reaction: smaller 4*s pool to pull from means faster track to 4* status. But you need to look at the bigger picture and the wider mechanics of the game. It took me about 1.5 years to transition from 3* to 4* as a semi-casual player. But once you get there, you have a strong 3* roster to fall back on while you slowly build your better 4*s. Vaulting will limit your options rather than expand them. Don't rush to 4* status but enjoy your 3*s and experiment with them, is the best advice I can give you ... and in the mean time prepare yourself to make the jump to 4*.

whycantwesyncpc

broll wrote:

Brigby wrote:

*Hope you don't mind the copy-and-paste of my response from another thread

The intent behind Bonus Heroes, and the removal of older 3 and 4-Star characters from packs, was to reduce pack dilution and provide a way for players to acquire newer characters faster. Having said that though, the team recognizes the community concern regarding older 3 and 4-Star progression, and has decided to start exploring several options to try and alleviate those concerns.

Keep in mind that this is still exploration, and nothing is 100% guaranteed, but here are some of the ideas that the team is investigating:

- A new store containing older 3 and 4-Star characters - Rotations for removed 3 and 4-Star characters - A new vault containing older 3 and 4-Star characters

As you can tell, these ideas are sparse in detail, as the team is still figuring out which could work the best. Once we have more information to provide, we'll be sure to update the community.

I'm curious to here what the cost would be of the new store containing older 3* and 4*s. This seems like an odd choice to me. Few people were complaining about 3* being vaulted due to the promised rotation. Not saying this is bad, just kinda weird.

You already promised rotations for 3* so I'm confused why you mentioned rotations for vaulted 3* and 4*. I'm OK with rotating 4*s as a fix.

As for a new vault, I'd have to see it, but off hand based on the previous mini vaults I can't say I like this idea. This seems like it would be the devs price gauging instead of actually fixing. Oh you want the vaulted characters? Open your wallets...

Nobody complained about 3*'s being rotated because it got overshadowed by the 4*'s and nobody actually read what they wrote. It says in the first post that they would rotate out 3*'s as new ones got added, but everyone somehow made it out to be they will be rotating characters in and out.

whycantwesyncpc

I'm not going to pass judgement on what they proposed since there are no details, and I'll just wait and see how things turn out. In general though when I look at games and those like them I always wonder why developers rarely get it. Taking things away is not a good way to address issues. I though demiurge finally got it with all of the redesigns they have been doing on the characters. Instead of nerfing the good ones they buffed the bad ones. No one wants what's good taken away and to do so is kind of anti-customer.

There is dilution (I played at least a half dozen other games while waiting on this and many have more characters, some way more, and don't seem to have an issue) but taking away just isn't a good way to do it. This is what I would do to fix things.

1) Keep latest legendaries as it is right now. I think it's a good idea to have an option available to focus on the latest characters.

2) Put all the rest of the 4*'s into the classic legendaries

3) Put heroic and elite tokens back the way they were.

4) Create a new limited token. It would be like the elite token but 3/4* only. It would be called limited because it would be limited to a small # of characters at all times, and the contents would change on a weekly basis. The characters in it would pull from all over the game so it would have both old and new, and people could pull when they see characters they want in it. It could even be themed at times.

Say for example since hawkeye was just release it would have his 3* version featured with a 50-70* chance of drawing if you pull a 3* and them maybe 4-5 other characters to round it out. For the 4* you make kate the featured 4* then add 4-5 others that could be pulled.

Of say when the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie comes out you feature all of the GoG characters with some others put in to balance it out. Some other themes could be x-men, avengers, team cap/ironman, etc.

Set the price to say 15cp or make it more expensive heroic HP wise. Add a few tokens here and there as rewards, it gives people a way to focus on characters they want/need when they are featured, along with bonus heroes without taking anything away.

revskip

Magic wrote:

AlluAllu wrote:

Before vaulting I was ready to retire after champing all 3-stars (halfway done currently). Move to the 4-star land just seemed to require insane amount of time and grinding. Now that there are only 12, I can look forward to having fun in the near future.

And do you really think you will have fun when you have to pair Riri and Agent Venom against Rhulk or Iceman that many players have championed already? I know there is Carol and Medusa and Wasp but they will not be boosted every week.

That is a false equivalency that you even see since you mentioned Carol and Medusa. Obviously there will be many weeks where Rhulk and Iceman aren't boosted either and so wouldn't be used in that circumstance. Honestly power creep has made it so that the majority of the twelve 4*s that are in packs are better than an average 4* that has been vaulted already. I'm stuck with a very tough decision after busting open my hoard of who to champ after Medusa. I have ~5 extra covers each for Blade, Wasp and Luke Cage and only will earn enough ISO for one of those.

Additionally all those pulls got my very underwhelming 1/2/4 Iceman to 4/4/5 in the span of 2 weeks. Granted I pulled a lot of legendaries but there was no way with the old system that I would have gotten that lucky to fully cover him. Now I can switch to finishing off my 2/5/2 Nova with the bonus heroes. And after I've caught up on the new releases that I plan to champ I'll favorite Iceman again and champ him and then repeat the process with Nova. I still won't be putting ISO into cover maxed characters I don't love which means I'll burn Riri and Agent Venom covers but that isn't really that different from when I would burn the occasional Eddie Brock Venom or Mr. Fantastic cover.

There has been so much vitriol for this new system but outside of the one really valid complaint of slowing down higher level champ rewards on the vaulted champs the system really isn't that bad. Hopefully they find a way to address that.