When is it time for 6-stars?

Dormammu

It won't be long before we have 70(!) 4-star characters in Marvel Puzzle Quest. The bloat has gone completely pear-shaped around the 3-star and 4-star tiers. I have to wonder how long this sideways growth can really continue before it reaches ludicrous levels (if it hasn't already).

There's only one other direction to go, and that's up. When it is it time to make 5-stars the new 4-stars and introduce a new rarity with 6-stars?

JHawkInc

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/70968/q-a-with-demiurge-will-answers-from-demiurge-will-begin-on-p-2/p2

There are no plans currently in the works for 6* characters, and we've heard a clear consensus among our players that they don't want them.

That said, I personally believe we'll need MPQ 2.0 before we need 6*s. The game is not designed for 6's, and in order for them to exist, the entire game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Besides, the sheer number of characters Marvel has at its disposal points towards lateral growth over vertical growth anyways. Lateral growth won't reach ludicrous levels until people stop asking the question "Where the hell is Hank/Namor/Kitty/RedSkull/Sabertooth/Mysterio/AdamWarlock/etc?"

CenturyChild

I think an easier solution maybe would be to just work on evening out the tiers overall, make a few new 3* characters, maybe some more 2* too? That would maybe throw some balance out of whack in that farms for those tiers might suddenly be more efficient than the devs intend, or maybe they don't care about that, and maybe they're completely done working on those tiers, I have no clue. That's just what I'd like to see.

Even if they don't touch 2* anymore (which is reasonable, I'm sure there are reasons not to) I'd really appreciate it if they'd take a minute to catch the 3* tier up with the 4* one. I think balance is the key rather than just endlessly adding new tiers. There are definitely enough marvel characters that they could just work on 3*, 4* and 5* forever and ever and never run out of characters. 

AlwaysWrong

I'm in a sort of agreement with centurychild here... They should mark some of the lower tier 3s (or even 4s) as limited like dino or Howard. Sentry? Limited. Rags? Limited. Colossus? Limited. Maybe bagman them somehow. This way they stay in the game but don't dilute the cover pulls as much. 

broll

JHawkInc said:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/70968/q-a-with-demiurge-will-answers-from-demiurge-will-begin-on-p-2/p2

There are no plans currently in the works for 6* characters, and we've heard a clear consensus among our players that they don't want them.

That said, I personally believe we'll need MPQ 2.0 before we need 6*s. The game is not designed for 6's, and in order for them to exist, the entire game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Besides, the sheer number of characters Marvel has at its disposal points towards lateral growth over vertical growth anyways. Lateral growth won't reach ludicrous levels until people stop asking the question "Where the hell is Hank/Namor/Kitty/RedSkull/Sabertooth/Mysterio/AdamWarlock/etc?"

To be fair.  This was said about SCL 8 or 9 a few weeks before it came out.  I take anything they say as far as what they aren't working on with a grain of salt.  If we they don't want us to know about it, they tell us it's not being worked on, right or wrong.

As far as when it's time, IMO it's slightly past time, but I know I'm in the minority there.

Also adding more 2*s and 3*s is the complete wrong direction IMO.  

jgomes32

Never...

Dormammu

JHawkInc said:
The game is not designed for 6's, and in order for them to exist, the entire game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Um, why? There was a time when 5-stars didn't exist. The game didn't need to be completely rebuilt for their inclusion.

First21

Nooooooo 6*s

Doc L

5* don't exist in the game properly though. They're often game-breaking in PvP, to the point its an arms race with every new 5* that looks close to OP. They are back-filling methods to acquire them currently, exemplifying this.

As for 6*, versus the bloated 4* and even 3* range, the easiest fix is simply to create more modes/events running concurrently to use them. Right now, I only use a lot of my roster when Thanos is buffed (well played D3, well played). If there were more events, even for more minimal things, like a few hundred iso per clear or something, I'd play more, especially if there was some more auto-populating DDQ-type nodes, or maybe even, pick like 9 characters of X tier, and have an endless set of waves, 50 Iso a wave. 6* aren't needed, I can't even begin to imagine how they'd balance them versus 5*. New currency to acquire them? One get them T1 in events? 

Just no.

Straycat

Why should there ever be 6*s? I don't see why having a large pool of 4*s is a problem, and I don't see how adding a new tier solves it.

Dormammu said:

JHawkInc said:
The game is not designed for 6's, and in order for them to exist, the entire game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Um, why? There was a time when 5-stars didn't exist. The game didn't need to be completely rebuilt for their inclusion.

Wasn't the 5* tier overall kinda broken? Scaling ruined everything, plus it didn't really work how they said they wanted it to. They weren't usable at 1 cover, and they weren't hard enough to get. If they had planned for a 6* tier, they should have made the 5* tier less of a jump above 4*s. 6*s could have been what 5*s are now.

If they make 6*s something completely different, I might be onboard. Like if they don't need iso, they don't have multiple covers, you just get one and its complete. Their level and damage scales to the opponent. Something like that. Making a 6* with balance of power like numbers.... no thanks

Milk Jugz

No 6*s.... Ever.....

broll

Straycat said:

Why should there ever be 6*s? I don't see why having a large pool of 4*s is a problem, and I don't see how adding a new tier solves it. 

Problems:
- Growing delusion in 4* and 5* tier to unmanagable levels.
- On top of the delusion 4* and now 5* are required at regular intervals and make the entry gate to playing the game for someone new higher and higher.

How does this fix them:
- TBH it doesn't unless they do they logical thing and when the new tier comes out severely lighten up on the rarity of the lower tiers.  4*s become as easy to get as 3*s are now, 5* become as easy to get as 4*s now, 6*s become as difficult to get as 5*s are now.  While 64 and growing 4*s is hard to catch up on 22 would be far easier.  64 at a 3*ish rarity would still be challenging regardless though, all the more reason to stop making new 4*s before that number becomes more unmanagable.

shartattack

Demiurge Will said:

While we usually say little about future plans*:

There are no plans currently in the works for 6* characters, and we've heard a clear consensus among our players that they don't want them.

*: Reasons for this: software development, creative work, and entertaining people are all messy and unpredictable, and when you cross the three together in a live game, making very many promises can lock you into disaster. And we know most of you are happiest with more detail and dislike when something you're expecting changes, so we typically talk about new things when we're certain of the details. Because of the nature of game development, that's usually when the feature's about to come out.

tiomono

broll said:

Straycat said:

Why should there ever be 6*s? I don't see why having a large pool of 4*s is a problem, and I don't see how adding a new tier solves it. 

Problems:
- Growing delusion in 4* and 5* tier to unmanagable levels.
- On top of the delusion 4* and now 5* are required at regular intervals and make the entry gate to playing the game for someone new higher and higher.

How does this fix them:
- TBH it doesn't unless they do they logical thing and when the new tier comes out severely lighten up on the rarity of the lower tiers.  4*s become as easy to get as 3*s are now, 5* become as easy to get as 4*s now, 6*s become as difficult to get as 5*s are now.  While 64 and growing 4*s is hard to catch up on 22 would be far easier.  64 at a 3*ish rarity would still be challenging regardless though, all the more reason to stop making new 4*s before that number becomes more unmanagable.

Yes the delirium levels are through the roof.

I'm not sure where I stand on this honestly. I like having tons of characters. So maybe the better solution is opening essentials to include 2 characters per tier. That would allow people with growing rosters better chances at having the needed character, and allow deeper rosters more diverse team options.

Dogface

I'd rather see some way to use those 70 4* instead of coming with 6*. As it is right now, i'm only using a small portion of all characters, unless they are essential. Stuff like shield training sometimes offers a chance to use an 'old' character. 
Or maybe an extra node in DDQ (or a completely separate event), where you need 3 essentials not just one.

shardwick

No need for 6s. Instead, raise the chances of pulling 2s and 3s from standards, 3s from elites, 3s and 4s from heroics, and 5s from legendaries. Also, update the reward structure for nodes to give out elites on the 5th or 6th clear. If people are complaining about certain 5s being OP then what will they say when like level 1000 characters are in the game?

CenturyChild

Maybe something like separating the more bloated tiers into sub tiers would help with the increasing number of heroes in them? Primarily for the sake of making collecting them easier as the population grows? Like separating the 3* and 4* tiers into common, uncommon and rare heroes (I know that 3* are already supposed to be "rare" but I'm not sure that terminology has stood the test of time). Without changing the heroes themselves at all really, it would just help offer a more streamlined way to enter each tier for newer players who don't already have most of the heroes. 

Common 3*/4* heroes could be the ones that aren't as super useful (Sentry? Spider Man?), and they would have a higher pull chance among their tier whenever you pull one of them, and uncommon would be less common obviously, and then rare (heroes like Strange, IM40 for the 3* tier) which are the ones that really change the dynamic of the game once acquired, would be even more rare to pull. 

The bonus hero system could stay the same as it is now, and you could set a rare 3*/4* as a bonus hero and still get that rare hero when you pull a common of the same tier, so that it's not so intensely difficult to acquire those rare heroes (since most people want Strange/Peggy/Medusa/IM40 as soon as possible upon entering those tiers).

I know this is sort of besides the point of the thread (but also sort of the point of the thread if most people agree that 6* is a bad idea and that we're okay with expanding the other tiers indefinitely). 

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, I'm still pretty new and have no idea if this would help, or actually be counterproductive and make collecting every 3*/4* an even more arduous task? (Not that I expect this to be implemented anyways.) The difference in pull rates doesn't have to be extreme, it could even be somewhat slight, just enough to make sure that when someone is entering the 3*/4* tiers, there are heroes that show up often enough that they can fully cover them and not be sitting on a mountain of heroes with only one or two covers forever and ever (not to mention the covers wasted due to lack of roster slots).

Idk bruh just tryna help, spitballing, spitballing 

The rockett

No no no no no.  When Gambit is that OP, and you look at the OG 5* (SS, OML, PHX) and see how useless they are, what the heck do you think a 6* will be.  I truly believe 6* would be end game. 

mega ghost

I'm fine with a 6* tier if:

1) A daily CoT is added to Deadpool Daily for increased 4* availability and champ levels.
2) There are increased paths to 5* covers (i.e. every 4* becomes a feeder) and we get a new dedicated token that awards 5* covers only. 
3) ISO is provided in a significantly increased quantity as you progress in the game. I have a large backlog of 4* characters that need champing. I haven't even dropped a single ISO into my 5* characters yet. As it stands, the casual player will never break into the 5* tier. With the current resources, only the most elite whales would experience 6* play.

Straycat

broll said:

Straycat said:

Why should there ever be 6*s? I don't see why having a large pool of 4*s is a problem, and I don't see how adding a new tier solves it. 

Problems:
- Growing delusion in 4* and 5* tier to unmanagable levels.
- On top of the delusion 4* and now 5* are required at regular intervals and make the entry gate to playing the game for someone new higher and higher.

How does this fix them:
- TBH it doesn't unless they do they logical thing and when the new tier comes out severely lighten up on the rarity of the lower tiers.  4*s become as easy to get as 3*s are now, 5* become as easy to get as 4*s now, 6*s become as difficult to get as 5*s are now.  While 64 and growing 4*s is hard to catch up on 22 would be far easier.  64 at a 3*ish rarity would still be challenging regardless though, all the more reason to stop making new 4*s before that number becomes more unmanagable.

Sounds like they should increase the token options. I'd rather that than lower the rarity of everything in service of another tier.  Add a 3-4* only token, a 3-4-5* token, or a vaulting-lite token that completely rotates its pool every season. 

Trilateralus

6* characters are absolutely the worst idea I could think of for this game. I would rather see them release 100 new 1* characters and never release another character after rather than see a single 6* introduced. I literally can not think of a worse idea than 6* characters.