2015 Player returning

Subcore
Subcore Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
in MPQ General Discussion
Thanks ahead of time for those that may help. Haven't played in years due to college. Just started back again and besides being a bit lost with all the new heroes, due to my old line-up, I can't even get a win in Shield. Back when I played, OML was the hero. I'd get my 900 pts and complete my Shield as well as PVEs. Now, that team can't accidentally buy a win. 

I had/have 420 OML / Jean Grey. No other 5 star worth mentioning. 4's or less doesn't matter since I now need 5s. Here's my question. Having those 2, I cannot match with anyone my level. Therefore, I cannot get new heroes in order to get new teams which will take years probably. Sadly, I cannot lower the level of those 5s but I can't find a match in PVP to pass 200. I'm now limited to only playing PVE. Seems PVP only matches me with the good new heroes and a lot higher level.

Is my only chance to rebuild is to sell my 2 5s so I can match with someone I can actually get a win? 

Any suggestion is appreciated. 
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Comments

  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    I would say your best bet is just to keep grinding away and try to cover the 4*'s
    Although that has just been made significantly harder with dilution returning.
    A lot of the 4*'s when boosted can easily hold their own against most 5*'s.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm not a 5* player, but this is an interesting quirk of the game that basically makes you a 5* transitioner, so I'm interested in what people are going to tell you. 

    For what it's worth, when I see 5* teams they often come equipped with America Chavez, who creates free crits when you have enough AP banked up. That maximizes the high match damage you get from 5*s without putting anything down that Gambit is able to work with for his two actives. His passive seems like it would be troublesome for her though.
  • Subcore
    Subcore Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
    I'm even curious if any 3s are worth saving. I have 80 characters, mostly 4s /5s (most are like 1 cover of Thanos...). Guessing that having 3s is a waste of space unless it's something like a daily or PVE that requires that specific cover? For example, just received 2 covers of 3* Hawkeye and planning on just selling the covers since paying 1k for the slot seems meaningless. Heck, there were some 4s that I didn't even bother because you only won with OML and whatever was boosted.
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    The fact of the matter is this: 3 years is a lot of ground to make up.
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    3*'s as you know are featured in both PvE's and PvP's.
    But they're also useful once you champ them çause they feed you a ton of goodies from champ levels. 
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wow, coming back after 3 years must be like going back to high school.  A LOT HAS CHANGED!  Champions is one of the best and most significant changes since you've been gone.  When a character is at max level, you can pay ISO to "champion" them and then add more levels as you get their covers.  Champion rewards are very good and it makes it worthwhile to roster and champion everyone.  I'm not joking, everyone! (except Bagman, Devil Dino and Howard the Duck).  Champion rewards give you covers of the next tier, or ISO or HP or CP or tokens.  So, you can progress faster with champion rewards, but the downside is paying a fortune for roster slots and another fortune of ISO to max/champion them, but...........it pays off in the end.  it's a long term strategy, building up over time.

    Another big change is player ranks and SHIELD clearance levels (SCL).  This is meant to separate everyone into tiers of similar strength players.  It kinda works.  But the good news is that every time you gain a rank, you get a ton of ISO.  It takes XP to gain in rank and that XP comes from adding covers to existing characters, which includes champ levels.  So, that's another reason to roster everyone.  Some people even have 1* farms where they constantly max cover 1*s to gain XP, then sell them and start over.  This is beneficial up to a certain rank, instead of just selling the cover right away.

    VIP membership, Bonus Rewards and Bonus Heroes are also new to you.  They're just ways of getting extra rewards.  Command Points (CP) may also be new to you.  CP is great because you can buy legendary tokens with them.  The token stores and vaults are more elaborate than ever.  Supports are very new, but so far, everyone thinks they're useless. 

    In general, the game rewards players who have rostered everyone, because it turns into more rewards or at least a combat advantage with certain events or nodes.  In short, rostering 4*s is your bridge to 5* characters.  Level 420 OML and Jean isn't going to scare away people like it used to.  Unfortunately, 5* PVP play is currently broken with 5*Gambit being too powerful.  Since you currently can't compete in PVP and you would lose out on PVP rewards for a very long time until you can compete, I would sell your OML and JG and scale back to the 4*characters.

    So, here's my advice: accept that you're in a bad situation and the best way forward is to focus on the 4* tier until you can max/champion a 5* fighting team, which will take a long time. So, sell OML and JG and build up all 4*s.  2*s and 3*s are not useless either.  They can provide champ rewards to fuel your overall goals, plus it's good to have them strong for required nodes/events.  The real point here is to enjoy the game and 4* land has far more variety, plus I find it more fun to get champ rewards than to just sell the cover for some minimal ISO. 
  • Subcore
    Subcore Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
    If anyone is curious, don't know how to link my character but  my alliance is Savages 2 and only has me (Subcore) and another friend that ran with me. My 4s are pretty solid though a bit old so there's hope.

    Thanks again to all the comments. It's a real boost the "new" game I'm getting back into.

  • iron-n-wine
    iron-n-wine Posts: 495 Mover and Shaker
    and finding an alliance who at least play once a day, will be a nice 2000 iso bonus each day
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    Looking at your roster, adding the rest of the 2* heroes is probably a good place to start.

    Since you last played, they greatly increased the sell back price of max-champed characters, which makes farming characters for resources workable.  For example, selling a 2* character at level 144, and then raising a duplicate to level 94 and champing them will set you back about 8,000 iso, and lets you collect all the champion rewards again.  Since you'll be receiving so many 2* covers, this basically means you're trading 8,000 iso for 375 HP, three 3* covers, 5 CP, and 5 heroic tokens.  They quickly pay for their roster slots, and give you a bunch of resources to help you expand your roster.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards
    regarding the 8k iso loss, I want to say that if you factor in the iso gained by going up shield levels you actually come out a little positive over time, don't you? there is a whole thread about it, and that part seemed to be my takeaway but I may be mistaken. However, the covers, hp, and cp are indispensable if you're trying to add slots etc. 
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    If you're looking for another alliance throw me a pm, I might be able to hook you up.

    Am I allowed to say that? 
  • Punisher5784
    Punisher5784 Posts: 3,845 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2018
    I've retired and returned twice, usually with 6mos of missed time. Each time was harder than the one before because I had to play catch-up, I had to grab all the characters I missed, I needed a millions of Iso. I cannot imagine what it would be like if I returned after 3years.. my recommendation is to find another game, especially if you're stuck with two 5*'s that aren't very good in today's 5* pool. Regardless what you decide I wish you the best of luck!
  • beyonderbub
    beyonderbub Posts: 661 Critical Contributor
    There is no such thing as a wasted cover. Collect them all. From 1* to 5*, all covers serve a purpose to build your character, add as a champ level and give rewards, and provide xp. Now you can even save “unusable” covers. Those that build everything are the players who have rosters that are most resistant to any changes that MPQ throws at them and continue to thrive when those changes are implemented. Get slots, roster everything, create dupes if necessary to start your farms. Those that pick and choose are always the players complaining that they are missing out or behind or victims of RNG. If you can’t get slots fast enough, then don’t pull until you have those slots. It’s a slow methodical build. 
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Punisher5784 said:
    I've retired and returned twice, usually with 6mos of missed time. Each time was harder than the one before because I had to play catch-up, I had to grab all the characters I missed, I needed a millions of Iso. I cannot imagine what it would be like if I returned after 3years.. my recommendation is to find another game, especially if you're stuck with two 5*'s that aren't very good in today's 5* pool. Regardless what you decide I wish you the best of luck!
    I've become a habitual quitter and returner.  I've quit cold turkey at least 4 times now.  And I believe I usually quit in the middle of a battle with tons of untapped resources.  Anyway, playing catch up isn't fun because you remember the power you once had.  The last time I played I kept thinking to myself how much better it would be to just start over.  No catch up involved, no finishing off unused tiers for champ rewards, just progress through the tiers as intended and have the champ rewards fuel your next tier. 

    Well, now I'm living that dream, but grinding for needed rewards is still tiresome.  Playing a variety of teams I think is the key to keeping the game fun.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards
    So when you "start over," did you create a new account, or did you just burn down your entire roster and start from those resources? I couldn't imagine starting over totally and having to grind for hp to get slots at this point.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    So when you "start over," did you create a new account, or did you just burn down your entire roster and start from those resources? I couldn't imagine starting over totally and having to grind for hp to get slots at this point.
    I opted for the crazy option of starting over from scratch, no roster slots.  This idea partly came from a problem with restoring my old account.  But, if you want to start over by just selling off all characters, that would create some big problems.  First, your Shield Rank wouldn't change, which means you would be locked out of the lower SCLs.  Also, the Prologue rewards would be spent, and you wouldn't have the option to purchase SCL Starter Packs, which are a very good value.  The good news would be that you would have tons of rostr slots and other resources to rebuild quickly, but the Shield Rank problem is an impass.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards
    that's true; I wonder what you'd even do for a starter character at that point? I think if that was going to be your plan, the best thing to do would be to PVP it until you had a decent set of 1 or 2* characters that you could immediately level and sell the rest, so you could at least compete in PVP and DDQ, but being locked out of story would be rough. I had a suggestion that shield ranks should gate you by character level rather than player level at one point. So you could play whatever level you want to, but only use characters whose levels fit within some defined range. That way you could use your low-covered, higher tier characters if you had them, but once they got too good for that rank, that specific character would be locked out. This targets the roster and not the player, the way the current system does.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    that's true; I wonder what you'd even do for a starter character at that point? I think if that was going to be your plan, the best thing to do would be to PVP it until you had a decent set of 1 or 2* characters that you could immediately level and sell the rest, so you could at least compete in PVP and DDQ, but being locked out of story would be rough. I had a suggestion that shield ranks should gate you by character level rather than player level at one point. So you could play whatever level you want to, but only use characters whose levels fit within some defined range. That way you could use your low-covered, higher tier characters if you had them, but once they got too good for that rank, that specific character would be locked out. This targets the roster and not the player, the way the current system does.
    What I suggested over a year ago was to create (every 3 - 6 months) a new "universe" for new players to join so that everyone in that universe would be around the same level and experience, thus leveling the playing field.  The most dedicated/addicted players would rise to the top, but it would be based more on merit than seniority in the universe.

    The main problem with that model is having a large enough player base for each universe.  But since players quit over time, each universe would come to an end.  If the time between universes is too large, then there's a larger difference in power amongst the players.  So, in retrospect, that was a bad idea, but I've seen it work in another game.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards
    Then you'd end up with at least one Galactus, last survivor of the pre-universe big bang, moving through the younger universe gobbling up all the planets...

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