Lifespan of MPQ or Deja Vu all over again

The Finn

Similar experience as Mohio, I'm currently on day 80 and only in recent weeks did I finally amass enough covers (from very active play) to have now 3 3* chars that I can level over 100. If I wasn't starving for ISO, that is.
But that is another matter for another topic.

Unknown

Dreylin wrote:

FWIW, what surprised me most was the recent dilution of the Courageous / Diabolic tokens. If anything, I had been expecting them to use these - or create a specific 3* token - to use as "mid-top tier" rewards that would balance out the glut of 3* characters in the game by making general covers more accessible (as opposed to specific post-release covers).

Then, rather than awarding GSBW covers in the current PvE, it would be 3* tokens at the top end. It wouldn't allow you to "target" a specific event for which you want the character reward, but you also wouldn't be stuck waiting for a particular character to come back around in the rotation.

But, that is EXACTLY what the devs do NOT want to happen.

You are asking for control over your roster growth. Control equals safety and comfort, which are the conditions that micro-transaction based game will never allow. You can temporarily buy control with cash (hero points) by directly purchasing the covers that you are seeking. The intent of the game is to make you uncomfortable enough that you splurge on cover purchases to gain a greater sense of safety in a given event.

I would go so far as to assert that the recent changes to the lightning rounds were made to create greater uncertainty in obtaining covers. Now, the ONLY reliable source of 3*** covers are the Versus tournaments. This is intentional, as this focuses player attention on a single event and increases their hunger towards obtaining the only reliable source of these covers. Even then, there is still no true sense of comfort. The devs can simply avoid passing out a enough of a character's cover to avoid players obtaining a full set and can leverage this against them.

A great example of this, occurring right now, is Lazy Thor. The devs are intentionally holding back on his covers in the hopes of players caving in and purchasing his covers because he is a powerful character. Players want Lazy Thor; there is no dispute about that. How many events has be been Powered-Up in recently? The Hunt is especially intriguing as both him and Lazy Cap are Powered-Up and at one point going to be required to place well in the event. But, how long can players hold off purchasing his covers in response to The Hunt? A quick scan of the Hunt event thread already shows people caving in and buying covers. If a player is placing well in their brackets right now, on subs 4 and 5, will their fortitude hold by subs 8 and 9 when nodes are all in the 200s and Lazy Thor/Cap is required to beat most nodes in subs? Scaling is all about players losing control of their destinies and placements, which can only be temporarily restored until the next event with cover and iso purchases.

Back to the Versus tournaments as the only "reliable" sources of 3*** covers. Many recent changes have served to further increase the pressure on players in these events. The lowering of MMR scaling, the addition of alliances, and now the upcoming Season tournaments.

From the Seasons discussion thread,

IceIX wrote:

S.H.I.E.L.D. command believes that the introduction of this new meta-Tournament will allow Agents to train themselves to even higher levels of efficiency in the search for greater rewards...

Granted, this quote may be taken somewhat out of context, as IceIX was speaking in-character, but the italicized phrase is quite relevant here. "Greater" is a relative term. With the downgrading of event rewards across the board (lightning rounds, PvE progression), "greater" rewards are found purely in the Versus tournaments. Let's go one step farther. IceIX mentioned the possibility of 10-packs as Season rewards. Combine that with your idea, and create 10-packs of guaranteed 3 or 4* covers. How hard would players fight for the certainty that can only be found at the top of the Season leaderboard?

In the end, the metagame from the devs' perspective is to limit player control and agency as much as possible. The more uncomfortable players are, the more likely they will spend to regain some semblance of control. And even if some players do not spend, the increased amount of effort required to achieve the same rewards will indirectly force others to spend to keep up that player. Either way, the devs win.

Be careful what you wish for, you might not like the actual implementation of your wish.

FaerieMyst

I have played both Puzzle Quests and Galactrix multiple times. Even with repeat events, MPQ is a refreshing change.

Dreylin

Lyrian wrote:

Be careful what you wish for, you might not like the actual implementation of your wish.

Excellent analysis.

I'd say that using 3* tokens instead of guaranteed covers would actually reduce players' control even further, however with the current cover purchase system in place, they actively need everyone to get that first cover of a particular character/colour before any player can invest money in building it up. Imagine if anyone could buy that first cover on any character....

_RiO_

FaerieMyst wrote:

I have played both Puzzle Quests and Galactrix multiple times. Even with repeat events, MPQ is a refreshing change.

Well, it's refreshing at the start, but really; once you start getting invested in the game with a more complete roster, that's imho when the cracks do start showing.

Unknown

I can't even muster the will to play this event, I'm just burnt out.

Cousin Simpson

I'm in the day 100+ range (got the GSBW not too long ago), and am seriously thinking about dropping the game because of how stalled I am at making it to 3* land (and my MMR is now high enough that I've started to brush up against 141s now in PVPs now). Unlike apparently most of the people in this thread, my LazyCap is only 1/1/1, though my playing schedule is decidedly less intense than others', but the expansion of the 3* field increases the likelihood that I'll experience a frustrating, time-consuming slog, and I'd like my life back please.

_RiO_

Cousin Simpson wrote:

I'm in the day 100+ range (got the GSBW not too long ago), and am seriously thinking about dropping the game because of how stalled I am at making it to 3* land (and my MMR is now high enough that I've started to brush up against 141s now in PVPs now). Unlike apparently most of the people in this thread, my LazyCap is only 1/1/1, though my playing schedule is decidedly less intense than others', but the expansion of the 3* field increases the likelihood that I'll experience a frustrating, time-consuming slog, and I'd like my life back please.

That would be the same crossroads I am almost at. For now, I'm still managing, but it's quickly becoming an unmanagable situation.

HailMary

MarvelMan wrote:

There was a difference between LazyThor and LazyCap rewards and his example was LazyCap, which were passed out like candy on Halloween. Yes, I am in a top alliance but without busting my buns I still ended up selling multiple covers for him. I believe there were more 7+ opportunities to get LC covers, whereas LT had quite a bit fewer (2?). I know my LT is languishing at 1/1/1 because I havent spent any HP/cash.


Edit: dang, I was too slow. But at least my experience is similar to Mike's.

Actually, I got 3/3/3 LThor through event placement. I have spent no cash in the game so far, but to Lyrian's credit, I'm seriously considering buying a LThor G cover using stocked-up HP.

LThor is no Mr. Rogers, but his covers were handed out in three events, incl. Hulk PVE and Heroic Juggs.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

LThor is no Mr. Rogers, but his covers were handed out in three events, incl. Hulk PVE and Heroic Juggs.

Yeah Cap is the best

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Actually, I got 3/3/3 LThor through event placement. I have spent no cash in the game so far, but to Lyrian's credit, I'm seriously considering buying a LThor G cover using stocked-up HP.

LThor is no Mr. Rogers, but his covers were handed out in three events, incl. Hulk PVE and Heroic Juggs.

Mine is 4/3/3 from a lucky token pull, but I have been debating over LThor myself. Previously 1250 HP was quite a bit to spend, and as a result was an intimidating turn off as that was a considerable investment. Now with HP becoming much easier to obtain, 1250 is not quite as intimidating as before.

Still, I've had to slap my hand a few times from spending my stocked-up HP on a cover for him already. Nevertheless, the temptation will continue to increase as everyone passes through the third wave of subs in the Hunt and levels cross into the 200s and 300s for players. Does a player pony up to keep going or call it a tourney and walk away once the going gets too tough?

HailMary

Lyrian wrote:

HailMary wrote:

Actually, I got 3/3/3 LThor through event placement. I have spent no cash in the game so far, but to Lyrian's credit, I'm seriously considering buying a LThor G cover using stocked-up HP.

LThor is no Mr. Rogers, but his covers were handed out in three events, incl. Hulk PVE and Heroic Juggs.

Mine is 4/3/3 from a lucky token pull, but I have been debating over LThor myself. Previously 1250 HP was quite a bit to spend, and as a result was an intimidating turn off as that was a considerable investment. Now with HP becoming much easier to obtain, 1250 is not quite as intimidating as before.

Still, I've had to slap my hand a few times from spending my stocked-up HP on a cover for him already. Nevertheless, the temptation will continue to increase as everyone passes through the third wave of subs in the Hunt and levels cross into the 200s and 300s for players. Does a player pony up to keep going or call it a tourney and walk away once the going gets too tough?

I definitely know the feeling. My LThor is 3/5/3 via two lucky token pulls, and it's really PVP that's pushing me towards buying a cover. I agree that HP is now much easier to come by , in no small part because I'm in a top alliance, so I'm actually considering it, versus never even considering the possibility in the past. With PVP point creep (700 is the new 500), I really want him at L141. I'm hoping to hold off on buying a cover until the end of the current PVE, in case I get lucky with an Assault token or two.

DD-The-Mighty

Lyrian wrote:

Dreylin wrote:

FWIW, what surprised me most was the recent dilution of the Courageous / Diabolic tokens. If anything, I had been expecting them to use these - or create a specific 3* token - to use as "mid-top tier" rewards that would balance out the glut of 3* characters in the game by making general covers more accessible (as opposed to specific post-release covers).

Then, rather than awarding GSBW covers in the current PvE, it would be 3* tokens at the top end. It wouldn't allow you to "target" a specific event for which you want the character reward, but you also wouldn't be stuck waiting for a particular character to come back around in the rotation.

But, that is EXACTLY what the devs do NOT want to happen.
From the Seasons discussion thread,

IceIX wrote:

S.H.I.E.L.D. command believes that the introduction of this new meta-Tournament will allow Agents to train themselves to even higher levels of efficiency in the search for greater rewards...

Granted, this quote may be taken somewhat out of context, as IceIX was speaking in-character, but the italicized phrase is quite relevant here. "Greater" is a relative term. With the downgrading of event rewards across the board (lightning rounds, PvE progression), "greater" rewards are found purely in the Versus tournaments. Let's go one step farther. IceIX mentioned the possibility of 10-packs as Season rewards. Combine that with your idea, and create 10-packs of guaranteed 3 or 4* covers. How hard would players fight for the certainty that can only be found at the top of the Season leaderboard?

In the end, the metagame from the devs' perspective is to limit player control and agency as much as possible. The more uncomfortable players are, the more likely they will spend to regain some semblance of control. And even if some players do not spend, the increased amount of effort required to achieve the same rewards will indirectly force others to spend to keep up that player. Either way, the devs win.

Be careful what you wish for, you might not like the actual implementation of your wish.

I pointed this very thing out in the r51/alliance reward change threads. They seem to want all players across all levels to be in a constant state of loss or near loss. Hence why the PVP MMR -untranked- and the increase of high end pvp ai, attempts to constantly pit you up against opponents far out of your level. Amplifying the already random prone nature of a cascading match 3 game against you. And no amount of leveling will save you from it.

Unfortunately most of the avid posters on this forum have long been in a very good place roster wise (maxed most of the 2*s they want and have a few good usable 3*'s) So they really don't feel how bad the changes to cover distribution have become. Couple that with the current trend of back to back new character events that reward the lucky and the top placing players (&alliances) with somewhat usable -if not capped- covers for the new characters. You can see why so many of them think its so easy to get a capped 3* or join a "top placing" alliance. This is not true for the majority of the player base.

And lastly I REALLY feel bad for the players attempting to transition to the 2* stage. More places for a single cover does not beat the uncapping potential of getting 2-3 covers. ISo was slow before but it was always an inevitability. Covers were never easy to get for specific characters to begin with, but when they were up, you could get that 2-3 you need and just wait it out on the iso. Now ISO is flooding like crazy, but with the drop in cover reward availability and reduction of PVE sub event 2* token rewards, 2* cover distribution is even worse than 3*.

Hence reinforcing what Lyrian posted: they want you to have 1/1/1 and put you in a position to get fed up and buy the remaining cover increases. Given the outrageous prices on cover-packs and 3* cover leveling prices this all comes off very underhanded.

ClydeFrog76

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It's ironic because your example actually contradicts your point. LazyCap covers are precisely why it's not any harder for people to transition from 2->3*: his covers were handed out so frequently that people easily made the transition from 2->3* just from his covers alone!

Sorry, but this is absolute twaddle.

I play a lot, I have done since I picked the game up late last year. My Lazy Thor is at 0/0/3 and my Lazy Cap is at 1/3/0. Hell, my BP is still only at 1/1/2. They haven't been handing them out like candy, and the more they release, the harder it's going to be for new people to transition to a viable 3* team. Especially now that alliances are playing such a big part in cover acquisition (which I was afraid would happen.)

Luckily I've got a couple of maxed 3* characters that I really love playing with, but if I was starting now I honestly don't think I'd have the patience to stick around.

NorthernPolarity

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It's ironic because your example actually contradicts your point. LazyCap covers are precisely why it's not any harder for people to transition from 2->3*: his covers were handed out so frequently that people easily made the transition from 2->3* just from his covers alone!

Sorry, but this is absolute twaddle.

I play a lot, I have done since I picked the game up late last year. My Lazy Thor is at 0/0/3 and my Lazy Cap is at 1/3/0. Hell, my BP is still only at 1/1/2. They haven't been handing them out like candy, and the more they release, the harder it's going to be for new people to transition to a viable 3* team. Especially now that alliances are playing such a big part in cover acquisition (which I was afraid would happen.)

Luckily I've got a couple of maxed 3* characters that I really love playing with, but if I was starting now I honestly don't think I'd have the patience to stick around.

3 sets of LT covers, 4 sets of BP covers, and 6 sets of Cap covers have been handed out since they've been released. I guess this depends on what kind of player you are: for the more casual people, yes, it's going to be hard to transition to 3*s if you don't consistently place in the range to get the 3* covers, but that hasn't changed from before aside from the LRs being nerfed. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6390#p120282 has my thoughts on why the alliance changes shouldn't really affect the overall number of people transitioning into 3* territory.

DD-The-Mighty

NorthernPolarity wrote:

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It's ironic because your example actually contradicts your point. LazyCap covers are precisely why it's not any harder for people to transition from 2->3*: his covers were handed out so frequently that people easily made the transition from 2->3* just from his covers alone!

Sorry, but this is absolute twaddle.

I play a lot, I have done since I picked the game up late last year. My Lazy Thor is at 0/0/3 and my Lazy Cap is at 1/3/0. Hell, my BP is still only at 1/1/2. They haven't been handing them out like candy, and the more they release, the harder it's going to be for new people to transition to a viable 3* team. Especially now that alliances are playing such a big part in cover acquisition (which I was afraid would happen.)

Luckily I've got a couple of maxed 3* characters that I really love playing with, but if I was starting now I honestly don't think I'd have the patience to stick around.

3 sets of LT covers, 4 sets of BP covers, and 6 sets of Cap covers have been handed out since they've been released. I guess this depends on what kind of player you are: for the more casual people, yes, it's going to be hard to transition to 3*s if you don't consistently place in the range to get the 3* covers, but that hasn't changed from before aside from the LRs being nerfed. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6390#p120282 has my thoughts on why the alliance changes shouldn't really affect the overall number of people transitioning into 3* territory.

When have they ever "handed out" anything?

You seem to be leaving out important parts about Lthor and BP. the initial PVE LThor and BP were the last major new hero PVE events before alliance-only cover nonsense got started.

You keep talking about players who were already getting top 10, which is exclusively the territory of high end 3* holders and team 85 2* grinders and both Shielding up the yass. Because that is the only way you can scare off or compensate for the viscous point losses that cannibalize the top 10 of PVP. They never represented even the non-Casual players. Most to all of them from the forums are all goon-squaded up and even still there's tons of higher end players who may be able to get top 10 but cant or don't want to join tryhard super alliances. Meaning no 3rd cover for them.

I also call bull on the transition being the same. Yes, players will inevitably transition into 2 and 3 star teams. but with them moving the second cover into the top 10 -easily the most difficult spots to hold without a scary 3* team- they have effectively slowed down the already slow process of winning covers. 2* is even worse an they have removed 1 whole cover entirely from the pool. If you played as you did before you now get 1-2 covers less than you did before they nerfed the rewards to hell. I have no idea how the heck you seem to think this is the same if not better. I'm guessing you already have all the covers you need, so you don't really care or get it. Try looking at it from the perspective of youe were actually on their way up and don't have the roster to buy your way into your uber-alliance, if you even wanted to join one. It wont look so rosy then.


Ugh...Covers should have never been in alliance rewards. So many screwed up builds and dragging out the content... but, whatever--cashgrabs everywhere.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

Imagine starting out today and trying to get a fully-covered 3* Magneto, or Spider-Man. I'd rather pound my balls flat with a ball-peen hammer than attempt it.

I started out in December and I still have neither C.Mags or Spidey fully covered.

I think the increase in events running means that the amount of Standard Tokens that you can pick up has increased dramatically. This should make it possible for new players to draw quite a few 2* covers. Looking at my own spreadsheet, in the past month I have drawn 56 2* covers (46 from Standard tokens). If you complement this with the 2* that a player can win then I'm sure a new player could do the 2* transition in about a month.

Since starting this game in December 2013 it has taken me until April 2014 to make the 3* transition.

It all really depends on how you invest your ISO. I wasn't very clever about it when I started.

On a side note:

The influx of new 3* is actually diluting the use of Spidey and Mags because recent players won't be able to cover these two in any foreseeable amount of time. Hence the usage of these heroes is largely limited to veterans and P2W players.

Also, with greater variety of Heroes some people will chose to cover their favourite characters rather than "the strongest".

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Meto5000 wrote:

Even if a player manages to get ~6-7 covers for a new character (which is only achievable if they're in a high tier alliance), that character probably isn't playable with their roster of 85 2*s until they get more covers. The more characters that are added, the less chance you have of nabbing a usable amount of covers without spending money.

I'm not so sure about this. It took about a month for them to release enough Psylocke/BP covers to be usable, and that seems like it took the same amount of time for an older character like Punisher/Hulk/etc. I believe that what we'll see is older covers to be offered less and less: IM40, for instance, will be offered less and it'll be harder to get his covers, but new characters will still have their covers released at the same frequency as before, which is what you see with characters like LazyCap.

Edit: Changed LazyThor to LazyCap. LazyThor's weirdly not been handed out as much, my guess is that he sells well and the devs want to milk him.

Meto5000 wrote:

Furthermore, with the change in Lightning Round tokens there are even less guaranteed covers being given out, making it so the people who were already ahead are going to stay that way (unless you spend money). I do think the rewards being given out for LRs were too high but now it seems the rewards are more paltry than they should be. Seeing as villain covers are rarely given out, it's darn near impossible to get their covers now.

Sure, this definitely makes it harder to transition into 3* territory. My argument was more revolved around the cover acquisition rates from standard PvP/PvE tournaments.

Dormammu wrote:

I disagree. You're assuming that every player in the 2* range is capable of placing in the top 10 every time they need to and is in an alliance that always finishes in the top 100, so they can nab those new covers whenever they're available. I don't think that's the case. It's going to take time beyond the initial burst of release. I've been around since the beginning and I still have trouble fully-covering a guy in (what I consider) a reasonable amount of time. More often than not I'll buy some HP to finish off the last couple of colors I need to max a guy out because I have no idea when that cover will be available to me again, or if my alliance is capable of getting a color affixed as an alliance-only reward. Now, I don't mind throwing money at the developers every so often to do this because I'm blessed with plenty of disposable income, but not everyone is that fortunate.

I've seen a lot of rosters out there ready to make the jump to 3* territory, but a lot of their characters look like 4/5/0 or 5/0/5. It can be rough.

I've been around since Punisher, and the time it took to max out Punisher/Hulk felt the same as the time it took to max out LazyCap/Psylocke/BP. I wasn't saying that the initial release burst will max out a character, I'm saying that the overall time it takes to max out a new character hasn't changed at all, which is what matters for our argument of "transitioning from 2* territory to 3* territory takes a lot longer than it did before". You also have to consider that before alliances, you would probably still see those players with 4/5/0 or 5/0/5. The 3rd cover was only given to the top 5 of each tournament, and I'm sure there were plenty of players who were only good enough to consistently place in top 15. The difference now is that in order to get that 3rd cover, you have to be in a top 100 alliance as opposed to being in the top 5 of each tournament. Given that a top 100 alliance has 20 members scoring on average 600-700 points, I don't see how getting into a top 100 alliance is any more difficult than scoring in the top 5 of every tournament for a player that is dedicated to the game. While theres obviously going to be people that would be screwed because they can't into a top alliance, I'm not convinced that this number is any higher than the people who were previously screwed because they can't hit top 5 in a PvP tournament.

MikeHock wrote:

I busted my butt in whatever event LazyThor was introduced to us and received a single Green Lazy Thor, so no, they were not "handed out so frequently ".

BP/Psylocke/LazyCap were handed out just as frequently as Punisher/Hulk/etc. I'm sorry if my example doesn't cover 100% of the cases, but I think it's pretty clear from all of the other characters released that the general trend remains the same.

Sure they might have been "handed out", but since top alliances receive those valuable 3rd colored covers, it's not been as easy to get them. The "trend" is scaling back rewards. Why do people keep perpetuating this myth that covers are "handed out like candy"?

Unknown

Sure they might have been "handed out", but since top alliances receive those valuable 3rd colored covers, it's not been as easy to get them. The "trend" is scaling back rewards. Why do people keep perpetuating this myth that covers are "handed out like candy"?[/quote]

Because only the top end nerd/forum players are getting the rewards, so they are being handed out like candy to them.

Unknown

Here's my take. When I started the game in late January, I saw some events, which I declined to go in. I focused on the prologue, found this forum and was ready for the one star tourney in February. I bought a shield, and secured Psylocke. Psylocke helped me secure BP and BP helped me with Lazy Thor and on and on. In the meantime I was/am building my 2* team and have leveled a few 3*'s. I also put some money into the game, which I have used for roster spots, shields, and the occasional token.

As far as 3*'s go, it's hard to get them, but ultimately there is a lot to do in the mean time. My biggest issue with the game, is that I feel like if I stopped playing, I might fall behind quickly because it seems like the focus is on having the last 3 new characters.

I am against giving covers to alliances as well because it makes it hard for just anyone to be able to complete the new characters and after a certain point, it very much seems like it's pay to get into xyz top alliance.

I do hope that the devs add new content because The Hunt is already tired and it's not even on the last few days yet.

The season mechanism looks interesting and I'm glad it's a 4* just in case I need to take some time off from the game.

I do think the devs are pushing this towards 3* land and I'm not sure how helpful that will be in expanding the game and for the overall longevity of the game, especially with Lazy Cap being given out so much and newer players winning him, but then not having the ISO to level him or the roster slots to create the best team and perhaps having to toss him at some point.

This was all over the place, but those are my thoughts.