Character Inflation

Dormammu

I've been playing this game off and on since the day it launched on Android, daily for the last 3+ years. Because of that, I've never really felt the HP crunch for roster slots. That's not to say I haven't made HP purchases in the game, I have, but never because I was in dire need of a roster slot. I've always just kept up with the HP needed for roster slots through normal game play earnings. But I can't imagine a new player staring at 173 characters (+1 every two weeks) and ever possibly rostering them all without a large investment of cash. Is it even possible to do so for F2P players anymore at the current character inflation?

As of this post, if you wanted to roster every character and only had the free roster slots given out at the beginning, it would cost you 133,375 HP to buy the slots needed. 36,375 HP would get you to 76 slots at which point they start costing 1000 HP per slot, so it would take you another 97,000 HP to get the rest. (This is based off numbers I pulled off the MPQ Wiki so not sure if 100% accurate, but it's in the ball park. I know the developers made some adjustments to roster slot costs a while back and don't know how up-to-date the Wiki is.)

This wouldn't be so daunting if the game didn't encourage/require us to roster everyone (except 1-stars) through essential PvE nodes.I get that this system pushes roster slot sales and roster slot sales make money, which keeps the lights on, but wow....

This is why every time there is a survey and it asks me how likely I am to recommend MPQ to someone, on a scale of 1-10 my answer is zero.

Dragon_Nexus

It feels very much the game's best suited for vets. I can't imagine starting over now. The ISO supply is greatly increased, sure, and the levelling up gives you a nice bulk drop of ISO now and then, but only now 5 years in do I have a surplus of ISO again. Last time I had a meaningful surplus was before championing came in and I had nothing to spend it on.

I'm entirely beholden to RNG to make 5* progress now. We have a new started in the alliance and he's making good progress so far. He's getting 4*s through the boss fights and such, but he's still working on getting his 3*s up and running. I have no idea how he's getting the roster slots for things.

I honestly hadn't realised the requirement for every character cost so much HP. That's a staggering amount and would take a looong time to earn through PvP and PvE.

KenshinUK

I started a year ago and have all but 7 5* rostered plus the odd dupe with 15k HP in the bank (was more but spent some on the anniversary vault).

I have spent a little money on the game though which I feel was a worthy investment gaining many slots early-ish on.
Just checked steam and i've spent £12.67 for the 3 DLCs.

bbigler

Well, Dormammu, I'm going through the new player experience now, so I'll give my 2 cents on the matter.  It is a major problem for new players (which I posted about) but I also believe it's by design.  I have wasted 0 covers since restarting 5+ months ago. So, did I need to purchase HP? Of course.  How Much?  The first week I bought 2 SCL starter packs, plus an Asgard Treasure, plus a Logan's Loonies.  After 1 week, I had 35 roster slots.  After 2 weeks, I had 54 slots.  After 3 weeks, 69.  Now after 23 weeks, I have 145 slots, but still need a few more and then I'll be HP positive.  In these past 5 months, I think I've spent around $300 USD on HP and Starter Packs.  But I did spend about 14,000 HP on the Anniversary vault. 

So, if a new player wants to be competitive and rise up quickly, they should be prepared to spend a couple hundred dollars in the first 6 months.  A F2P player must accept cover waste and choose their characters wisely.  But if a F2P player had a 2* and 3* slot that they rotate people in and out, they would be wasting even more covers.  I would recommend new players to hoard tokens if they don't have the HP to roster new 3*s and 4*s, but they should roster all 2*s (and farm them) ASAP. 

GrimSkald

It's a good question - do the characters drop at a rate that you can't get enough HP to roster them all?  I strongly suspect that newer players feel the crunch - I do see questions of "who to roster" on the FB group all the time.

On the bright side, at least with saved covers you never have to worry about wasting a cover for a rostered character.  I suspect rostering a character is a calculus that a new player has to make - that's not necessarily a bad thing as choices of how you play the game are ... well they're part of the game.  I suspect it gets to be less of a pinch as you're able to do better in PVP and PVP.

Any 3* and 4* players want to chime in on this?

HoundofShadow

I started a year ago too but I have spent zero dime on this game. I've rostered almost all the 4*. HP is not a problem for me now because I'm earning 1000 HP in three days on average from PvP, PvE and 2* farming. There are some bonuses from shield resupply and alliance ranking. Since new character comes out every two weeks and I'm earning about 5000HP every two weeks, I have no problem with catching up on 4*. 

Since 5* are made more easily available through feeders, I would focus on Classic Tokens to roster 5* characters. 

I would say it's not difficult but you need dedication and be a little competitive. As many say, MPQ is a marathon. In my early days, I'd to make decisions on who to roster. I think it's a good exercise to understand the characters by making you think hard on who to prioritise.
I've passed this challenge now and my next challenge is rostering 5*.

PepPep

I've been playing for 14 months and have everyone rostered.  I give the survey a 0, won't recommended to anybody, because of lack of ISO.  I have so many fully covered 4 stars that I can't enjoy because I don't have the ISO to champ them.  It's frustrating.

Waddles_Pines

Dormammu said:

As of this post, if you wanted to roster every character and only had the free roster slots given out at the beginning, it would cost you 133,375 HP to buy the slots needed. 36,375 HP would get you to 76 slots at which point they start costing 1000 HP per slot, so it would take you another 97,000 HP to get the rest. (This is based off numbers I pulled off the MPQ Wiki so not sure if 100% accurate, but it's in the ball park. I know the developers made some adjustments to roster slot costs a while back and don't know how up-to-date the Wiki is.)

I think I read on the forums that after 300 slots it's up to 2000 per slot... eke....

Straycat

I don't think its a big problem. It took me a long time before I was hitting full progression every event. The eventual goal is everyone champed and everyone farming, but that is the endgame content. The game takes longer to beat now, I don't see that as a problem.

Jaedenkaal

I mean, you only need 60 slots to have every 2* and 3* character rostered, plus a couple for a 1* or two, and Bag-Man if you care enough. At that point, you're doing pretty well and should probably have the HP to roster the 4*s you'll get randomly in heroic tokens from time to time.

Obviously, you'll get yourself into trouble if you start opening latest legends tokens or spending CP on classics or release stores, and that's the bigger issue in my mind; there's nothing to indicate to a newer player when they should start doing this, and of course, they'll start getting CP and LT tokens much sooner than they really need them.

Dogface

If you play regularly, you'll much sooner be HP positive than ISO positive. I'm at a point where i have over 10k HP and roster slots at 1k. And the time between new releases is usually more than enough to earn enough HP for a slot. If you only spend HP on roster slots, just playing should suffice.

CNash

Waddles_Pines said:

I think I read on the forums that after 300 slots it's up to 2000 per slot... eke....

I have a feeling that this will be re-evaluated if we ever get close to 300 unique characters. It's clearly designed for players who roster large numbers of duplicate characters.

Dormammu

Dogface said:

If you play regularly, you'll much sooner be HP positive than ISO positive.

This is absolutely true, but at least with unlimited saved covers all the ISO pressure is off. Expiring covers can still be a very irritating problem for someone who isn't HP positive.

Phumade

Waddles_Pines said:

Dormammu said:

As of this post, if you wanted to roster every character and only had the free roster slots given out at the beginning, it would cost you 133,375 HP to buy the slots needed. 36,375 HP would get you to 76 slots at which point they start costing 1000 HP per slot, so it would take you another 97,000 HP to get the rest. (This is based off numbers I pulled off the MPQ Wiki so not sure if 100% accurate, but it's in the ball park. I know the developers made some adjustments to roster slot costs a while back and don't know how up-to-date the Wiki is.)

I think I read on the forums that after 300 slots it's up to 2000 per slot... eke....

Its true the prices goes up from 1000 to 2000hp at 300 slots.  Thing is though, people who need that many slots have farms etc that require the space.  2k is a minor expense once your in that tier of play.  The farms and regular rewards more that cover those costs.

Twomp_thaDJ

Phumade said:

Its true the prices goes up from 1000 to 2000hp at 300 slots.  Thing is though, people who need that many slots have farms etc that require the space.  2k is a minor expense once your in that tier of play.  The farms and regular rewards more that cover those costs.

Yeah but that sting of spending 2K never goes away lol

broll

bbigler said:

So, if a new player wants to be competitive and rise up quickly, they should be prepared to spend a couple hundred dollars in the first 6 months. 

So status quo then?  That's how it felt when I joined 3 years ago, I definitely spent more than $300 in the first few months, though some of that was chasing characters from vaults not yet understanding the game economy, but most of it was roster slots.  For a truly new player it's gonna be worse unless they do their homework in advance.  You're doing your new account with the knowledge of how to play, when to open Legionaries and when not to for example.  A lot of my money could have been saved had I known that 4*s won't be much use for the first 6 months at least and 5*s more like 2 years or more.  Hold your CP and LTs at the beginning.  Most new players won't know that because the game gives no indication of that (also likely by design).

broll

Dogface said:

If you play regularly, you'll much sooner be HP positive than ISO positive. I'm at a point where i have over 10k HP and roster slots at 1k. And the time between new releases is usually more than enough to earn enough HP for a slot. If you only spend HP on roster slots, just playing should suffice.

This is very true, especially if you do one of the followin:

• Don't play PvP
• Don't worry about PvP placement and/or play for wins vs points.

I have a ridiculous HP surplus since I went to wins based, it's very nice.  Shields are such a huge HP sink trap.

randomhero1090

I'm coming up on a year.  Spent over $500 on the game.  Couldn't imagine trying to start this game from scratch without spending any money.  All the money went to HP or bundles that included HP.  Majority of HP went to slots (I have all but 3x 5* rostered).

Roster spots way too expensive.  ISO too rare and expensive.  Double ISO during anni was great, should just leave it that way.  Put some sort of iso converter in the game.  Even if its crazy.  Like 10,000 ISO for 1 CP or something like that.

I have 21x 4* fully covered and obviously don't have the ISO.  I need like 8,000,000 ISO to champ them all.  So if I earn roughly 25,000 ISO per day, going to take me 320 days of play to champ them all   

Dogface

320 days makes you a player for nearly another year. That's the point

DarthDeVo

randomhero1090 said:

I'm coming up on a year.  Spent over $500 on the game.  Couldn't imagine trying to start this game from scratch without spending any money.  All the money went to HP or bundles that included HP.  Majority of HP went to slots (I have all but 3x 5* rostered).

Roster spots way too expensive.  ISO too rare and expensive.  Double ISO during anni was great, should just leave it that way.  Put some sort of iso converter in the game.  Even if its crazy.  Like 10,000 ISO for 1 CP or something like that.

I have 21x 4* fully covered and obviously don't have the ISO.  I need like 8,000,000 ISO to champ them all.  So if I earn roughly 25,000 ISO per day, going to take me 320 days of play to champ them all   

I've been playing for 2.5 years, fairly competitively for 2 years. I pull down somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50K ISO per day depending on rewards, and I still have about a 3.2M overall ISO debt.

I was closer to 8M at the beginning of the year, so it is going down. I had hoped to be at least ISO neutral by the end of the year, but that's looking less and less likely. I should be close though.

About 1.2M of that is owed among the 1*, 3*, and 4* tiers. The rest is thanks to the 5*s.

The biggest thing they could do is adjust the cost of champing a 4* downward. It should cost 250K, 275K at the most. It's the largest tier by far, and also the one that costs the most to champ on an ISO-to-level ratio. 

Jormagund

Newer player here, currently on day 138 and playing F2P.  Nice to see so many of you saying you're HP positive as it has been my biggest gripe so far and I've had to let a lot of 3*/4* covers expire. I didn't look on line for strategy tips to begin with and it took me a month or two to realize I was wasting roster slots on 1*s at my level, and even longer looking at other people's rosters to realize you only needed one for DDQ; my own fault there though.

Currently sat at 28 of the 3*s and 18 4*s. Probably would have been better to focus on just 3*s but I'm only picking up 4*s if they're interesting (i.e. kicked my **** in PVP), just changed strategy to also try and recruit any new 4* as soon as possible to take advantage of the multiple covers available.

Over the next few weeks got a 4* Vulture I don't want to let expire and then the 3 X-Force Wolverines through daily rewards. My roster slots currently come in at 750 HP and I'm probably able to afford three a fortnight. So even with my unwise 4* commitments I should be able to transition from3 to 4 star sometime early next year (and start using my latest legends toucans/CP too).

As HoundofShadow said above it's a bit of a marathon. I'll be spending my CP points on Classic legends to try and get as many 4*s as possible but will probably only have about 2,000 to  burn when I start this process, getting any champed 4* let alone a useful quantity seems a long way off.

Advantage of being HP negative is I'm 1.2 million ISO positive but I imagine that will disappear quickly when I do finally start pulling 4*s regularly.