Soft capping

Tintaiwan

Does soft capping still exist?

I ask because I am rapidly approaching the end of 4 star land.  I have about half champed and a lot the others are close.  My fear is this.  If I start into 5 star land, my 4 stars become like my 3 stars are to me now.  Most of my 3 stars are useless in 4 star land.  I don't want that to happen to the 4 stars that I have been grooming for a long long time.   

Any thoughts. 

The rockett

The nature of this game is progression.  You want to progress to make you team/roster stronger and stronger. So to answer your question, besides a core group of 4*, once you are in 5* land they will become like your 3* now, irrelevant. 

You will use 4* when boosted, example last week i was taking down 500+ Thor and Gambit teams with maxed champed boosted Gamora and Medusa.  You will use your 4* in pve for essentials but some of them you will never use.  

Without seeing your roster or knowing your play level, it is hard to say what to do at this point. 

Tony_Foot

It doesn't exist as an 'exploit' but whether you do it is purely down to you and how much you like certain aspects of the game. I was in the exact same position in november and chose to champ Gambit Parker and DD. I don't really enjoy PVP (I'm happy with 575 and out but now go to 900) and most of my game is PVE.

I instantly regretted it and still do. Of course there are so many characters in the 4* game it's bound to be more diverse but if I look at my roster now for pve, non essential from the 4*s I use:

Chavez at level 120
Vulture if Parker is boosted
Xpool for Sim
Groot and Gamora for two of the DDQ

That is it from almost all 4* with 13 covers. I don't even care or look at new 4* releases or their powers unless someone in my alliance says they are top tier. The trouble is the speed is much faster in pve with the 5* and it's impossible to turn your back on that once you have started down that path. I wish I could roll back the clock, I could sell the 5* but couldn't face doing that. I did it once before but hoarded for way too long this time.

I do understand the argument that 4*s get relevant again at high levels and can be seen in pvp with high level gamoras and medusas running around but people like me aren't going to see a 370 medusa this side of 2020.

All you can do is take your new 5* to 360 and see how you feel about that speed because once you go 450 your 4*s won't get a lot of use for a long long time.

Rod5

Softcapping was always a way to get ahead in PvE, now it’s pretty much the opposite.

You need to decide how competitive you want to be, if you want to get 1.2k+ in PvP, if you want to place in CL8/9 PvE.

if you’re not that fussed and enjoy your game as it is now, just hoard tokens. If you decide you want a more powerful team, then you’ll have the ammunition to go for it when you do.

It’s a bit chicken and egg - once you get there it is far easier to get more CPs/covers. Most players can get 575 in PvP and max prog in CL7 PvE, but if you’re getting 1.2k and playing CL9 PvE then the rewards are significantly better, even before placement.

Tintaiwan

My Rod5 said:

Softcapping was always a way to get ahead in PvE, now it’s pretty much the opposite.

You need to decide how competitive you want to be, if you want to get 1.2k+ in PvP, if you want to place in CL8/9 PvE.

if you’re not that fussed and enjoy your game as it is now, just hoard tokens. If you decide you want a more powerful team, then you’ll have the ammunition to go for it when you do.

It’s a bit chicken and egg - once you get there it is far easier to get more CPs/covers. Most players can get 575 in PvP and max prog in CL7 PvE, but if you’re getting 1.2k and playing CL9 PvE then the rewards are significantly better, even before placement.

My fear is not about progressing, but about game burnout.  I like being able to rotate through a diverse group, instead of one or two 5* champs.   So if I can avoid this until a lot of my 5* stars are close or fully covered, then I willl not spend on iso on 5 stars.  

Tony Foot said:

I instantly regretted it and still do. Of course there are so many characters in the 4* game it's bound to be more diverse but if I look at my roster now for pve, non essential from the 4*s I use:

I just don't want to be in that boat, that new covers are useless.  (4 stars too weak, and 5 stars take forever to get useful)    So if not leveling 5 stars will keep me out that situation, then good.  I just want to know if it will work.  Can avoid leaving 4 star land until by not iso leveling my 5 stars?

Tony_Foot

Looking at your roster you could run them up to 350ish maybe 360 without fear but you don't have any near 13 covers yet? Do you have a hoard you are about to pull?

Certainly don't add levels to the Phoenix Thanos and OML you have pushed up to 330.

Phumade

The 4* tier really ends once your 4* reach the 330-340 unboosted level.

Generally speaking to get the best MMR scenario that allows the widest range of chars.  you want your 5* to be no more than 70-90 levels ahead of your Top 5 4* avg.


So.

Keep your 5* within 70-90 levels ahead of your Top 5 4*.
2.  Once your Top 5 4* are over 330-340 range.  They effectively are considered 5* for MMR purposes.


Eventually 4* roster growth will eventually push into the 5* tier no matter what.  Unless your prepared to sell covers past 340.

Waddles_Pines

Thanks Phumade.  You addressed something that's been in the back of my mind.  I have a handful of 4*in the low 300s and I have zero interest in being in 5* land.  

Does anyone else have a lower "safe" number than 330?  I really don't want to go past the point of no return, but of course I want my 4* to be as powerful as possible.  I have no problems selling covers if it means staying in 4* land.

Also, just to be safe, raising my 5* to the same level as my highest 4* shouldn't hurt my mmr, right?  There's so much conflicting data out there since there's no "official" statement from d3 on how mmr is calculated.  Thanks.

bluewolf

There will never be an official MMR statement from the devs. It’s the secret sauce of making PVP work.  That said, the game is pretty long in the tooth and we have a good idea about how it works.

If you have enough champed 4’s so that you normally have 2 or more per week that are boosted, taking your 5’s to 360 is fine.  Note that MMR changes with boost lists too, so even if you have a week where the only 360+ characters are 5’s, the next week you’ll be solidly in 4* mmr.

Generally don’t level your 5’s until they are close to finishable (11+ covers) or you don’t know what else to do (almost all 4’s are champed).

Tintaiwan

is mmr just PVP or also PVE? @bluewolf / @Phumade

That's great info - I leveled Thanos and Phoenix before I knew.  But my 4 stars are getting useful now...

bluewolf

Mmr is a PvP only function. You choose your pve opponent level when you enter the event.  All enemy levels are pre-determined.  Exception: side nodes in boss Events, which are roster scaled as it goes on.

Daredevil217

I don’t have any iso in my 5* but plan to soft cap them as soon as I’m done with my 4s (7 left!). 

Dogface

That's one of the biggest weak spots in this game. Having to softcap your potentially best characters to have something of a fair competition in PVP.
On the other hand you got PVE where it would be best to level your best characters to the max.
Softcapping is a failure in game mechanics imo.

Hadronic

friends dont let friends soft cap, or buy iso with real money

DFiPL

Tintaiwan said:

Does soft capping still exist?

I ask because I am rapidly approaching the end of 4 star land.  I have about half champed and a lot the others are close.  My fear is this.  If I start into 5 star land, my 4 stars become like my 3 stars are to me now.  Most of my 3 stars are useless in 4 star land.  I don't want that to happen to the 4 stars that I have been grooming for a long long time.   

Any thoughts. 

It kind of does. There are people who won't level their covered 5* for reasons akin to your own. They want to keep their MMR under control in PVP, or they're afraid that if their 5* get too powerful, they'll feel trapped into using them all the time in PVE in order to be competitive for placement.

It doesn't exist as it did in days gone by, when soft capping kept scaling manageable and allowed underleveled rosters to place better than leveled rosters that were rewarded with tougher fights.

I don't know what to tell you, really, about PVP, other than to say that even with four or five champion 5*, my PVP teams are typically one 3*, one 4*, and one 5* (exact composition varies based on factors) and I reach the targets I always could before I championed my covered 5*s.

The targets I can't hit now, I never could before, because I'm not willing to make the "necessary" changes to my play to enable those. So, I mean, whatever.

PVE? What are you looking for there? Do you play it to fiddle around with boosted combinations one week to the next, and just generally enjoy the synergies you find? Do you play for progression to get CP to feed to RNGesus? Do you have ambitions of being able to place better than you currently do?

Let's take those three in order:

1) Nothing needs to change. If it's an available game mode, rather than a priority, you needn't worry about your 4* becoming obsolete, because you control that.

2) See above. What 5* champions add to that is they enable you to finish progression play with less of a time investment. Nothing prevents you from playing with your 4* characters if that's what you want to do instead. You'll just be playing a while longer to reach your goal.

3) The truth is that there's a certain level of "uselessness" already baked into 4* land if your PVE play is ambitious at all. The name of the placement game is speed; the extent to which you're willing to acknowledge that by using faster teams over 'enjoyable' teams is the extent to which you'll realize placement ambitions. If that's so, then the difference between the 5* game and the 4* game to you, at least in PVE, is deck chairs on the Titanic. It's using your 5* champion(s) and America versus running Gamora and Baby Groot.

5* vs 4* is a little bit like PVE vs PVP in that there isn't an easy answer that lets you get everything you're after from both. To get one thing, you might have to make sacrifices with something else.

broll

Hadronic said:

friends dont let friends soft cap, or buy iso with real money

You just triggered my PTSD...

Tintaiwan said:

I ask because I am rapidly approaching the end of 4 star land.  I have about half champed and a lot the others are close.  

i think you over estimate how close you to the end of 4* land.  It takes me about 8 days to get the ISO to champ a 4* from L70. For ease let’s call it 1 week. So you need 32 weeks of ISO To champ the rest of the 4*s you have now.  There’s a new 4* on average every 3 weeks so in that 32 weeks ~11 for will be added (so another 11 weeks). So in short it’s gonba be the better part of a year before you’re out and that’s assuming you don’t spend ISO anywhere else. 

As as far as the actual question of soft capping, play how it’s fun for you. It s a game for fun. If soft capping makes it more fun for you, then do it. 

Some people say soft capping isn’t viable/useful now.  I’d argue it may be more useful now that 5*s get boosted in SCL7 and up. I personally don’t soft cap but that’s because I had higher ISO priorities  

The biggest thing to consider is MMR if you PvP. If you PvP you probably don’t want to soft cap over your 4*s boost levels. 

Good luck in whatever you decide. 

Warbringa

If you enjoy the game in where you are at now in 4* land, I would not recommend moving to 5*.  As noted above it will basically ruin your experience just like 4* did with 3*.  I have 5* Gambit champed and while he is awesome for PvE, I sometimes get burnout from using him too much and while I can switch to a 4* team, his speed makes it hard to go back.  This week though I haven't used him at all with boosted 4* Grocket.  

PvP will really be ruined for you when you go to 5* land because you will only be able to use that 5* all the time basically.  

If you want to break into 5* land, I would recommend waiting until you can at least get several fully covered 5* to begin to champ so you can at least play with a variety of 5*.  I am doing that now.  I champed Gambit but have DD and Thor max covered but decided not to champ them yet.  I am perfectly willing to just continue to level up my 4* as of now as my foray into 5* land (with Gambit) wasn't very worthwhile imo.