Demiurge has unfairly forced Farming as mandatory

sinnerjfl

Banacek555 said:

"Buy" ... and there's the key word ... perverse in the extreme to a game that is meant to Free 2 Play at its core.

on the other - yes I have HP - but in terms of gaining same rate of 3* covers as 2* - that does not happen. 

I could have full 13 covers for 2* in less than month - absolutely no way you could do that for 3* - unless Demiurge didn't something fair and increased sources of 3* covers.

then even when you've won enough ISO to actually champion a 3* - again rate at which you will gain specific 3* character covers to level to 266 - still going to be two years.

nope - they can be silent all they like - but we all know every change - is their strategic vision - to make even more money on this Free 2 Play game

Farming the 2*'s, champ rewards and selling them nets you about 4500 HP. So its the easiest and steadiest source of HP in the game.

After the initial investment, you'll always have HP on hand.

Stax the Foyer

You should want to champ extra versions of characters.  It pays out the ISO you put in, along with extra HP, covers, and tokens.

Setting up a structure that incentivizes farming dupes is good for the game, because it pushes people in the direction of a behavior that will benefit you overall. 

If you have max champed 3*s, you know how good those last 40 or so levels are in terms of rewards.  You want to get to a point where you always have a bunch of characters in that range, so that every cover you get is usable as a champ reward or building your next copy.

fmftint

Most story events have 9 nodes/day, 90 xp, there are 6 DDQ nodes/day, 60 xp, you need 19 matches/day to reach progression in vs events and sim, 38 xp, for a total of 188 xp/day.
To cover that lost xp you need to add 19 1, 2, or 3 star covers to your roster EVERY DAY

PenniesForEveryone

fmftint said:

Most story events have 9 nodes/day, 90 xp, there are 6 DDQ nodes/day, 60 xp, you need 19 matches/day to reach progression in vs events and sim, 38 xp, for a total of 188 xp/day.
To cover that lost xp you need to add 19 1, 2, or 3 star covers to your roster EVERY DAY

How many covers do you add every day?  Have you counted?  You act like 19 is an absurdly high number....that seems like it might be on the low side to me.

Stax the Foyer

As soon as I found out about the switchover, I saved all of the covers that I earned.  In less than 2 days, I had about 80 new covers in my queue.

Part of that is that EotS gives out a metric Hulkload of tokens, but even on an average day, applying 20-30 covers isn't that crazy. 

You can get 5 tokens from DDQ, plus a cover, so that's between 3 and 6 covers right there.  Several standards from PvE clears, along with an event token if you have the 5*.  A handful of tokens from intercepts (if you get those).  Progression and reward tokens and covers from events.  Victory covers from PvP.  Heroic tokens or feeder covers from 2* farms.

There's a lot of covers that pass through my queue every day.

Dayv

GrimSkald said:

I'll also add here that getting levels is really not that big a deal.  Getting Iso faster is a nice bonus, but your Iso income does become more manageable as time goes by.  Sure, you get a crunch every once in a while, but you usually get an opportunity to earn enough to apply covers before they expire. Worst comes to worst you delay a bit in redoing your 2* farm so you're down a few champ 2*s.  A 3* farm can be a real big draw on the Iso, in fact, but you can always sell them if you don't mind taking the hit every once in a while in PVP. 

I've been trying to decide how big my 3* farm should really be, honestly - I'm seriously considering selling some of my higher level 3*s that have almost hit the halfway point and have had featured PVPs recently

I’ve sold close to thirty maxed 3* champs, Some with as few as one cover rostered for a dupe.  I was working like crazy to level all the non-vaulted 4* characters in tokens through spring and summer while also leveling several 5* as my long-term classic token devotion strategy matured in more of a big lump than I had expected.  A couple of those PVPs were a pain, especially ones where I couldn't even re-champ until partway into the event, but not so much that I regret the decision.

fmftint

Again,  that 19 only replaces the xp lost from story mode.

DyingLegend

Every game has a form of farming. If you don't or haven't had a strong 2 star farm going then you are doing it wrong. Once I get all my 3s done you bet I will dupe them and start a new farm.

smkspy

It's still as just has an inaccurate way of measuring your roster strength as the old system.

Being dependent on a 2 and 3 farm with the frequent 4 and rare 5 to help supplement xp progression is not a good measure. Not that having a farm is a bad thing, but devs have to know that this change is completely promoting further farming into all tiers now, at the expense of actual roster development. If I want to put some iso into my 5s, I really can't cause I need to champ my dupe lazy cap and patch mainly to prevent the loss of xp now and not rewards.

With this change to how we acquire xp, the cap on roster spots needs to be raised too.

Dormammu

I think what people fail to understand is that levels gained from XP were not intended as a steady ISO income, that's just a byproduct. The system was intended to work players into the Shield Clearance Level roll-out and give newer and mid-tier players better access to placement rewards. The developers clearly miscalculated the old XP system and are trying to correct their mistake (though the damage might be done for many existing players who have access to SCLs far beyond their rosters).

ISO rewards from XP levels are not a god-given right you're born with that they have suddenly stolen away in a maniacal act of tyranny, they're just trying to improve the overall experience of Marvel Puzzle Quest.

Honestly, I think you get MORE XP now. I went up a level today just cashing in 2 days worth of covers off my normal token income.

BearVenger

As other posters (and devs) had mentioned above, I thought the SHIELD Level's purpose was to best gauge your roster strength. I love getting the ISO bump with each level increase, but I never considered its primary purpose to be extra ISO income.

In fact, I would think you'd end up overmatched if you shoot up SHIELD levels purely by cycling through characters you don't plan to keep. Farming then ends up giving you slightly more ISO, but it doesn't give you stronger characters.

I used to have the math on me, but farming ends up being a slight loss of ISO in exchange for increased power/health/strength, HP, CP, covers, and tokens. ISO is nice, but its only worth is to level up unchamped characters. I consider the HP/CP/covers/tokens more necessary for roster growth. For that reason, I aim to double-champ my 3*s and cycle through my 2*s whenever I can.

Also, while there's a good argument for getting more ISO in the long term (such as stacking covers before selling), more ISO later isn't the end-all, be-all. Since covers are time-limited at 14 days, there's a decent argument to cashing out a smaller amount of ISO NOW to level/champ a character before a cover expires. Also, with the addition of standalone events that require a new character at Level XXX to win a cover or token, it's not a bad idea to have a bit of ISO in your hip pocket.

Finally, I pretty much dismiss posts that include words like "forced," "punish", "slap in the face," and "disgusting abuse of power." Cranking up the intensity without a good argument is like a bad musician just playing louder.

vernr1

After day one what I have noticed is a decreased motivation to clear nodes, or pvp.. essentially to play matches (the game). It may be that in the long run the Xperia gains are similar, or better matched to SCL.. but so far all it has done is decrease my desire to play. I’m also being far more critical about what matches I play, Can I get a token from it? That seems to be the only thing that matters now. My roster isn’t strong enough (or I refuse to play so many hours a day), that any placement rewards are beyond me.  I settle for the slow trickling in of resources, and based off the math others have done, I really doubt my gains are going to anything on par as before.
Time will tell, but so far this change has just made me play less, not due to liking/disliking game differently, but due to the game mechanics and perception of work/reward.

MaskedMan

Basically they have admitted that the change gives no benefit to players, the best you can expect is to advance at the same rate as before.  That is what their stated goal was.

In order to reach that goal you have to farm instead of playing the game.  They have sucked about the last bit of fun from the game now.  My alliance now has 3 active VIP members left when a few months ago virtually the entire alliance was.  My guess is they are all leaving and I am probably on my last renewal too.

One wonders if the game could survive at all without the Marvel name and Characters anymore.  A GAME should be able to succeed as game first.  Marketing should be a bonus.

jredd

why would you not dupe up 3 stars after you max champ them? so many champ level rewards going to waste just to sell them for 500 iso.

i sold my first 2 but then regretted it after so now i dupe any that get maxed.  

with bonus heroes you can get a 3* back to champ status in a week.

TheXMan

Because ISO is still the limited resource in the game.  I have duped a few but will only do the ones that have rewards of the best 4 stars

jredd

you get iso rewards from champ levels. then a lump after you max champ and sell your dupe. then you've already got the roster slot to start again.

smkspy

Dormammu said:

I think what people fail to understand is that levels gained from XP were not intended as a steady ISO income, that's just a byproduct. The system was intended to work players into the Shield Clearance Level roll-out and give newer and mid-tier players better access to placement rewards. The developers clearly miscalculated the old XP system and are trying to correct their mistake (though the damage might be done for many existing players who have access to SCLs far beyond their rosters).

ISO rewards from XP levels are not a god-given right you're born with that they have suddenly stolen away in a maniacal act of tyranny, they're just trying to improve the overall experience of Marvel Puzzle Quest.

Honestly, I think you get MORE XP now. I went up a level today just cashing in 2 days worth of covers off my normal token income.

If this were true then devs wouldn't have set the scl requirements so ridiculously low in the first place. Them they wouldn't have added xp to PvP a month or two after the system started.

And the whole, "players have access to levels they are not ready for" argument is silly. Players have loads of rewards they gain access to before they are ready. If theu choose to compete in levels they KNOW that they will fail, then that's on them.

Whether intent or not, from day one all scl levels did was slightly gate new Players while being nothing more than a bonus iso boost mechanism for the rest of us.

What they have planned with scl rankings in the future, I dunno. But maybe they could at least try to clue us in a bit, cause otherwise they just raised the bonus iso up to level 200 and then took away the best methods for reaching it.

Daredevil217

So is 1* farming a viable thing?  I’m like 200 posts behind in the announcement thread and thought I’d ask it here in case anyone knows.  

Kahmon

I've only glaced at the maths since it seemed more trouble than it's worth to me, but I think the short version is that ones with 2 abilities are not, but ones with 3 abilities are about a 13% higher yeild that just selling them.

j0nats

@brigby maybe introduce champ levels to 1*s.... it will make 1*farming more enjoyable, like PokeMPQ