Any speculation on the next 4* champ reward change thing?

bluewolf

The only token that you know what you're getting - to some degree - is Latest/Classic.  You will not pull any Classic from Latest, so if you have a fully covered Vintage 5, you can pull only Latests and take your time leveling him/her around various other iso needs (Latest 5's, 4's, dupe 3's, etc) since you know a surprise cover won't mess up your plan.  (You could do the opposite if you chose, and only pull Classics so you don't have to champ a Latest 5 you don't want.)  So the 5* tier is the only one where you can somewhat control your iso needs, while still pulling tokens.

Or you could until the feeder system was introduced.  So it is a real player concern that their plan for managing iso use can be upended by a feeder that pressures them to suddenly champ someone or lose a cover.  Whether that has any weight as an argument is up to you, but it is valid to some players.  I personally avoided champing any 5 until Vulture fed my 14th 5pidey cover, despite having a couple fully covered.

They will not give us the list in advance.  Looking at my roster, I have about a dozen 4's that are a few covers from a 5* cover breaking point (300 or 320 in my case).  If I knew they would be feeders in the near future, would I bonus them now? Of course.  If I were a medium to heavy spender (I mostly just do VIP), would I purchase Heroics to try to get them to the cover point?  Of course.  The devs are giving us covers retroactively for any level we have passed.  They would probably stop that if they gave us a heads up, because otherwise: everyone who could would abuse the system to make sure they leveled their 4's to the cover point to make sure they get both the LT and the 5* cover.  So if you like the retroactive 5* covers being rewarded, recognize that the devs will not give enough heads up for most players to try to level their 4's.

Look, it is not the case that the feeder system is just meant to give us some minor progress toward completing 5's.  5's are and will remain the ultimate carrot we chase. The feeder system is simply an attempt to address the unavoidable feeling of futility that the massive Classic 5* pool creates if you are trying to pull a Classic 5.  Dilution means that you currently have a .75% chance of pulling a cover for a 5 you want from Classics.  Feeders are a glimmer of hope that you are not playing for nothing if you want a Classic 5*.

Finally, it will take about 3 years - at the current pace of feeders being introduced once a month and new 5's every 6 weeks (on average) - to "catch up" so that all 5's have feeders.  Again, this makes it obvious that the developers have no interest in speeding this up or making it too easy to cover 5's.  It's just so you have some hope, where otherwise you could basically consider Classic 5's to be basically unfinishable.  If this whole system was sped up, you could believe that 6's are coming soon, and the devs have no interest in that (nor do most players).

ThaRoadWarrior

I would be willing to bet that for every individual for whom this was a real, pressing concern, there are 10s or even hundreds of players who are nowhere near a spot where this matters. I have to imagine that whatever is driving the decision to pace out the changes has little to nothing to do with inconveniencing a subset of the player base. I'm sure there is a reason it's being done this way, I am just very skeptical this is it.

bluewolf

Y’know, I forgot to say that I predict Thor will be the next fed 5.  Hard to say who will feed him....4thor seems obvious so probably not her.

ThaRoadWarrior

Main Event Hulk seems equally logical, so again probably someone else. Maybe Valkyrie if she weren't so new.

Hadronic

They could also release new characters already feeding people, then we get them faster and the devs don't have to deal with retroactive rewards for all characters. As a player I enjoy the extra goodies but this seems like a no brainer for the devs.

For example Valkyrie should have been released feeding Thor day 1.

Brigby

Dragon_Nexus said:

This is a shame. Double Brigby comments and no answer to my actual question =(

Sorry @Dragon_Nexus. It's only because I don't have that info right now.

bluewolf

Recent patterns have been that the pve that begins on the Sunday/Monday after season starts, the Vintage 4* pve reward is the next feeder. So XFW is favored to feed someone starting next week.  That suggests OML.

But this is all conjecture. 

tiomono

@aesthetocyst

I can confirm it looks terrible on phone lol. 

I wouldn't mind the old man getting a feeder. X-23 or xforce would be fine, so it will probably be nightcrawler.

Orion

If it follows the pattern of bad 4*s feeding 5*s then XFW fits the bill.

bluewolf

Orion said:

If it follows the pattern of bad 4*s feeding 5*s then XFW fits the bill.

That’s another point in his favor.  Although I don’t consider Kate “bad” as much as “passed by the meta”.  She has a good set of powers but CD’s are a bit slow.

bluewolf

The thing is, group one - the great ones you mention - Vul, Med, Gam - launched the feeder program all at once. It was/is awesome to be rewarded for leveling very desirable 4’s.

Then the monthly announcements.  Sandman, Kingpin, Kate, Drax.  All medium to bad.

It certainly seems like they started with a group that would make everyone happy and moved to “collect these characters you might have easily skipped.”  So XFW would follow that trend.

HoundofShadow

I suppose some players have forgotten or are not aware that besides satisfying the players, the developers or someone in charge of MPQ have to satisfy business objectives set by the management as well. Afterall, this is an investment to them and they expect to see certain level of ROI. I believe most of the posters in this forum have seen a recent example of what happens when business objective(s) are not met.

The argument that releasing more feeders for 5* (more regularly) would cause Iso-8 drought is reasonable. Other possible implications of Iso-8 drought could be wasted covers. On the other hand, there are players who seldom or rarely face this issue because they are sitting on a few millions Iso-8 or have done enough planning and calculation to prevent this problem.

The other point of view to look at this would be: if they were to accede to the players' requests for more feeders regularly or any other requests more easily, would players slow down their demand for more resources? I'm confident to say the answer is "no". After the players have gotten their requests, the next possible list of requests, in this case, would be more iso-8 or less iso-8 to champ 4* or 5*, more cp, more hp etc. The developers either need to exert certain level of control or continue to be led by the nose.

Many would agree that it is virtually impossible to satisfy all sides. Generally speaking, one can either satisfy the majority (usually), the most or more authorative figure(s), the minority or reach a compromise between all or most parties. When one choose to compromise, it's fair to say that the solution would cause some sort of dissatisfaction or it doesn't meet the satisfaction level of all parties. In the case of a majority vs a minority situation, one side's gain is another side's loss.

They could easily give out 2 - 3 feeders for 5* to satisfy the more veteran players.  I mean, the current ratio of 4* to 5* is ~ 3:1. Given the rate of 4* release vs 5* release, it's fair to conclude that the ratio would increase in the future.

Again, assuming that, now, they decided to release more feeders for a certain 5*, or release more feeders to cover all the 5* more quickly,  what impact does it have to the players of all levels in the long run and what impact does it have to their business objectives/ROI in the long run?

Logically, I believe, that they'd have done simulations of the different rates and amount of releases for all the in-game resources, including CP, HP, ISO-8 etc. With the data (including players' feedbacks) they have gathered over the years, it's possible that this is the best solution, as of now, given the constraints, the players' in-game developments for all levels, the business objectives, the long-term survivability of the game.

ZeiramMR

If it is XFW -> OML, that puts me in a bit of a lurch. Logan is one of the three 5*s I have max-covered, and that would give me two covers. With Gambit as my only champ 5*, I'm really hesitant to jump into that higher level of MMR by champing Old Man Logan.

dadows

i think leave latests, but increase the classics rate for 5 stars because they are SOOOOO much harder to cover for newer players. 

DAZ0273

dadows said:

i think leave latests, but increase the classics rate for 5 stars because they are SOOOOO much harder to cover for newer players. 

They are pretty tough to get for semi-old players too! I thought I was hot stuff when I got 5 Iron Man covers, never seen another one since!