What HP gets you today

bluewolf
bluewolf Posts: 5,736 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion

As I considered the HP bonus sale this year, I decided to reflect on what the game offers for that HP.  (I did support the game with an Asgard Treasure during the sale). The sale this year and last were pretty much the same, I believe (30% extra).  Prices for HP have also remained the same for quite some time.  (Other than the A/B offers that some players get).

So I looked and decided that Thanos 3/5 being added was a good break point to compare costs and benefits of spending, since it pretty much coincided with the last sale.  And I included America Chavez in my numbers.

Pre-Thanos there were 95 3/4/5* characters.  (For this post, I am ignoring the 1/2* tiers since they have been stable for quite some time).  Thanos and all releases through America Chavez added 34 3/4/5*s altogether.  This is a 26% increase in roster slots to 129 (again, ignoring 1&2s) if you want to/can roster all of these characters.  That’s 34000 HP or about 1 2/3 Starks.

Anyway, if you are buying HP to give yourself roster slots to compete as a newer player, it costs about 26% more now.  (Roster slot costs have not dropped in the past year at all.)

Are you planning to buy tokens with your HP?  The hope is, I assume, for more 4’s.  Let’s look at that a moment.

In the 4 star tier, we went from 43 to 61 characters.  That’s almost 30% more right there (18 more characters).  What does that mean?

Well, if you are trying to cover/level/champ 4s for their utility in PVE as a 4E, you now have about 8 months between runs as an essential.  But I’m not including the fact that new characters will push that out to probably 9-10 months for existing characters, nor that the devs tend to run Latests a little more often.  So you might miss one 4E every 10 months for not rostering a vintage 4.  My rough estimate for last year is a 4 being featured about every 6 months, so they are now about 30% less valuable in terms of being able to compete in a PVE.

If you want to have 4’s ready to be used as boosted characters in PVE/PVP, we went from a 8-ish week cycle (5 per week, 43 4*s) to a 12 week cycle (61 4*s).  So your advantage for any one 4* dropped quite a bit there.  I realize this is a long game, but once every 3 months is not very exciting.  Anyway, you could say that each 4* is 30% less valuable (other than the fact that some are always better anyway) in terms of boosted characters.

Now, procuring 4’s has changed a lot.  A year ago you had 1/43 chance of any 4* from a pull (CP or Heroic) being for a particular character.  Now we have bonus heroes as well as Latest making about half your 4’s focus among 12 characters, but half are now divided among 49 characters.  So you have worse odds of a natural (non-bonus) 4 giving you a character you want - about 1% - if they are vintage status.

I estimate that it would be about 2290 CP to get one cover of all vintage 4’s now.  Not including bonus heroes.

What about Heroic packs?  Let’s say you bought 40 packs.  I am not sure of the odds (the screen says they are increased, but not how much), but let’s say it doubles from 1/14 to 1/7.  So if you have two 40 packs you get about 11 4’s.  If you want to cover vintage characters, that about 16 40 packs (remember that you will get about 5.5 vintages per 2 40 packs) to get all 49 vintages once.  That’s 179,200 HP or 9 Starks.  I’m not sure if draw rates changed in the last year, but I think it would have been at least one less pack if you had 43 characters.

Bonus heroes are great but:  1.  Inconsistent and not any kind of promise.  2.  Make it hard to estimate what it will cost for things.  I want to try to say it costs 26% more for covering the 4* tier, but if you have the bonus set right and you get lucky, it could be less per character.

I would say the main point I am making is this:  Character increase means that your spending in game gets you less ahead than it used to, both in terms of roster slots and covers.  And advantages you less in terms of character utility.  Essentially, dilution of characters leads to inflation of resource costs, especially when compared to unchanging resource costs.

The devs are obviously interested in increasing revenue, but the prospect of spending is less beneficial for the average player than it was a year ago.  Whales really are driving the spending as long as this is so.  Whales spend to keep up, but catching up gets more and more expensive as the game goes on.

So while it would seem more fair to newer players to make HP cheaper - or make resources cost less - it seems unlikely.  Make your own decisions accordingly.  

Final note:  I realize that many players spend HP on shields, but those are high end PVPers in general, and tend to be less concerned about roster slot costs or getting covers - aka vets.

Comments

  • Spudgutter
    Spudgutter Posts: 743 Critical Contributor
    I was seriously considering buying a Stark over the weekend, but had basically all of these thoughts in my head, and ended up deciding against it.  

    I will concede that the game does give out more of everything now, but it is certainly not keeping up with the rate of what is being added.  Just look at the bump from CL8 to CL9 in pvp.  It does not even compare to the small jump that pve gets you from going to CL9.  Instead, the inventive for higher level pvp is to go to CL7 for easier placement.  

    It's just a long list of small things that bug me enough to quit spending, but not playing. Thanks for putting the numbers to my thoughts.
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    Nice analysis, but completely irrelevant after seeing the number of buys on Friday.
  • Daiches
    Daiches Posts: 1,252 Chairperson of the Boards
    Bowgentle said:
    Nice analysis, but completely irrelevant after seeing the number of buys on Friday.
    Buys were also 3 for the price of one.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    Bowgentle said:
    Nice analysis, but completely irrelevant after seeing the number of buys on Friday.
    Where would you see that?  I didn't think they shared much in the way of any numbers or financials...
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2018
    broll said:
    Bowgentle said:
    Nice analysis, but completely irrelevant after seeing the number of buys on Friday.
    Where would you see that?  I didn't think they shared much in the way of any numbers or financials...
    PVP alliance T10 leaderboard.
  • The rockett
    The rockett Posts: 2,016 Chairperson of the Boards
    You won't see the financial numbers but i do think this might have been the biggest (and sadest) day for MPQ with money being spent. It was insane. 
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,605 Chairperson of the Boards
    The rockett said:
    You won't see the financial numbers but i do think this might have been the biggest (and sadest) day for MPQ with money being spent. It was insane. 
    The only people that seem to be sad about it are the doomsayers here on the forums.
  • Rumakashi
    Rumakashi Posts: 31 Just Dropped In
    edited January 2018
    Not really fond of your analysis. Since the introduction of champions, HP is not a difficult ressource to obtain as it used to be. Before, it was hard to be able to obtain the HP to roster a character in two weeks. Now i don't really care if i place more than top100 during a sub-event.

    I'm a 550+ day player. Today, i think i started the day with about 700 hp, tonight i'm at 1440. Between the second HP progression of the pve (which is dependant of the event duration), the hp you gain by adding covers sometimes and the hp i gained doing the pvp progression of the current event, i've made three quarter of a new character.

    And my 3* are mostly in the levels you gain only 50 hp, my 4* are not fully champed (only 14 are) and i didn't sell any max champed 2* hero.

    Of course a new player will have problems to roster, but the game is old, it's totally normal. But honestly who will recommend an old f2p "mobile" game to someone.
  • Spudgutter
    Spudgutter Posts: 743 Critical Contributor
    Rumakashi said:
    Not really fond of your analysis. Since the introduction of champions, HP is not a difficult ressource to obtain as it used to be. Before, it was hard to be able to obtain the HP to roster a character in two weeks. Now i don't really care if i place more than top100 during a sub-event.

    I'm a 550+ day player. Today, i think i started the day with about 700 hp, tonight i'm at 1440. Between the second HP progression of the pve (which is dependant of the event duration), the hp you gain by adding covers sometimes and the hp i gained doing the pvp progression of the current event, i've made three quarter of a new character.

    And my 3* are mostly in the levels you gain only 50 hp, my 4* are not fully champed (only 14 are) and i didn't sell any max champed 2* hero.

    Of course a new player will have problems to roster, but the game is old, it's totally normal. But honestly who will recommend an old f2p "mobile" game to someone.
    I hit day 1470 today.  We had simliar conversations about gaining new players to an old game 900 days ago, and yet, here you are.  The point isn't that the resources are harder to get.  Quite the opposite.  The problem is they havent kept up with the rate of inflation.  

    I'll give you an example.  Someone posted a screenshot of their roster from 1/2/14.  They have a cover for X Force Wolverine. They could purchase a cover for him, as long as they already had a cover of that color, for 2500hp.  Four years later, you can purchase a cover for him, only if he comes up in the HfH, for 3600hp.
  • Punisher5784
    Punisher5784 Posts: 3,845 Chairperson of the Boards
    @bluewolf I believe your HP analysis is the reason that roster slots are on sale!
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 1,455 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2018
    I miss when you could buy covers with HP.

    The good old days...

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