Using rosters in depth

Ptahhotep

I read a lot of comments on the forum complaining that the game does not have events that encourage greater use of a player’s roster.  I would like to suggest a new design for a PVE event to rectify that.
The event would be constructed entirely from non-repeatable nodes. The characters that form the team that beats a node would be locked out for the remainder of the event. Players would have to consider who they bring to each fight and conserve their stronger characters for the harder nodes.

Rod5

That is a really interesting idea, hopefully adding some actual jeopardy in there. Not time-bound, but actual strategy.

Not necessarily for huge rewards either, just for some variety and a 10pk or something.

HoundofShadow

This is an interesting idea. On the flip side, wouldn't this isolate newer players? Or should I say, how can we allow newer players to enjoy this event as well?

Richyyy

HoundofShadow said:

This is an interesting idea. On the flip side, wouldn't this isolate newer players? Or should I say, how can we allow newer players to enjoy this event as well?

Maybe once your entire roster runs out (maybe not including 1*s), they all open up for use again? So if you've only got 12 characters you can use them and then carry on, but if you've got 200 you have to use them all up before any are available again.

Interesting concept. The most basic way to force us to actually use our roster would be to bring back Heroics - which I also heartily endorse - but this would be another way that would actually add more of that 'Puzzle' thing that's in the name of the game.

Dormammu

I too like this idea. The difficulty would have to gradually scale and nodes should probably lock out certain tiers of your rosters at the beginning. For example, the first couple of nodes would only allow the player to use 1-star or 2-star characters. Then you open up the 3-star nodes which allow those characters access in addition to the 1s and 2s. Then the 4-star nodes, etc...

Unfortunately, this model of difficulty scaling would prevent more and more players from succeeding the harder it gets. Maybe cap it at a 4-star difficulty and lock out 5-stars altogether. This would allow the 5-star player to enjoy their 4-stars once again and 3-star players to try and play above their level, which certain 3-star teams can do, saving their best for last.

abmoraz

I've suggested something similar, except by event.  When you enter an event, you have to choose the characters from your roster to send to that event.  These characters become unusable for other events until this event ends.  You can always send more characters to an event already in progress (call for backup?), but if you do, they're not available for other events until that event is over.

This would definitely encourage players to keep bigger rosters, use more chars, and even to roster duplicates of highly desirable toons rather than max-champing them right away so that they're available for multiple events.

tl;dr:

Turn every event into an old-school Heroic event, except let the player choose which toons to take and those toons are locked out of other events until it's over.

broll

Rod5 said:

That is a really interesting idea, hopefully adding some actual jeopardy in there. Not time-bound, but actual strategy.

Not necessarily for huge rewards either, just for some variety and a 10pk or something.

Depends on large / optional the event were and how small the players roster.  

I've asked many, many times for PvE seasons and some kind of PvE simulator.  Something like this could fill that.  In order to stretch it over the whole season maybe you get 2-4 uses per character.

I like the idea as an optional thing or new side event, but not to replace existing PvE events, I think that would definitely hurt engagement, the way Heroic PvE events almost got me to quit the game in my first few weeks...