Why have new character discussions dropped off?

bbigler

I wish we had more communication from D3 and Demiurge on the future plans of the game.  Where is this going?  What is the goal in mind?  Will new characters never stop?  Will the 4* tier bloat to 100? 150?  @Brigby do you know? 

Let's hypothesize what would happen if things keep going as they are now: in 1 year we would have about 16 new 4*s totaling 88 available in packs (I'm not counting limited).  In 2 years, we would have about 104 x 4*s in packs.  Demiurge is giving away covers for the newest 4*s a lot more often than the older ones.  So, we're heading towards a situation similar to Classic 5*s.......dilution will make it very difficult to cover the older 4*s, so new players will champ the newest 4*s first, which will probably be a disadvantage because the best combos are most likely with the larger older group.  This is currently true with 5* champs. 

The future of the game is dependent on new players.  New players right now can start champing 4*s when they're done champing 3*s, but that balance is fading away.  I'm speaking from my own experience on this matter, but I realize most players don't play as seriously as me.  A year from now the best progression advice after finishing the 3* tier may be to hoard to 400 pulls and champ the 3 Latest 5*s and skip over the 4* tier.  The new player would then continue chasing Latest 5*s while slowly building a 4* champ farm.  If it comes to this, then new 4* characters are meaningless. 

I think that's the direction we're currently headed - 5* players already don't care much about new 4*s; most current 4* players are trying to get into 5* play and 3* players are currently dealing with 4* dilution, which slows them down.  So, the 4* tier has become a tar pit that you slog through until you can reach 5* play.  This tar pit is just getting bigger and deeper as time goes on, so I imagine smart new players will simply hoard and skip the tier entirely.  But getting 5* champs is also slow and difficult too. 

The point here is that if D3/Demiurge stay the course, then I'm predicting that the dedicated player base will start to lose interest and quit little by little until most of the revenue is gone and the game stops development.  It would take years to get to that point, but I believe we're headed in that direction. 

mega ghost

They used to post teasers of the abilities a week or two in advance of the character release as well. Now we either just get a clue to think on for a few days, or there is no clue and it's MCU tie-in content.

New characters are also honestly less exciting now that there is no increased pull percentage on the Latest 12. With so much dilution I won't have the newest characters covered any time soon, so there's no point in putting energy into thinking about them unless they seem meta-changing.

BigSoftieFF

I find the new characters pretty easy to cover so far, but I’m sitting at a high overall coverage rate. My biggest issue with new characters is I probably won’t use them and I’m still in the 4* tier.

2nd issue for me is that I play for placement in PVE so that pretty much guarantees that guardians will be involved as there’s quite simply nothing faster. With that being said I do PvP a lot so they do get used during boost weeks and such. 

I would like like to see new events, side missions, or send away missions where you could use more of your roster to get things done. The thing to remember is there has to be a way to monetize it or at least continue to drive character chasing revenue. 

SaltyK

As a returning player that is still in the 3* to 4* progression, it is already difficult for me to complete my 3* roster.
4* are pretty much out of reach, 5* is a dream and a goal to work towards.

My best 4*, Devil Dinosaur & Taskmaster, are less than 7 covers and limited, most other 4* are 1 or 2 covers. 
I would like to get 4* Vulture since everyone recommends him but it's RNG if i can get him or not; with the number of 4* heroes currently available and constantly being released, my chances are grim.
It will take me months and months of hoarding and i might not even get a single Vulture even if i crack my horde then.

Every new 4* character release is exciting to me but when i realized that my chance to get a specific hero is getting lower and lower, that excitement fades quickly.

Lastly, It's exciting to get a new 4* character but since they won't be usable for a long long time (like 2-3 years long? lol), i tend to just chuck them aside unless they are required for Deadpool's daily.

ZootSax

mega ghost said:

New characters are also honestly less exciting now that there is no increased pull percentage on the Latest 12. With so much dilution I won't have the newest characters covered any time soon, so there's no point in putting energy into thinking about them unless they seem meta-changing.

Yeah, I’m thinking along the same lines. I’m a typically a 8CP progression PVE & 200-575 PVP player in an alliance which  only completes 3-5 rounds of a boss event (so, super-casual by forum standards).  For me to cover a new 4* would require putting them as my sole bonus hero for quite a bit of time (6+ months, at my current BH rate, even with the frequent PVE required character cycle we’re on now).

With the prospect of only being able to cover a couple new characters a year, it’s hard to care about most of the new releases.  I recently used 120CP to champ Ghost since finishing a 5/2/5 seemed FAR more worthwhile than 6 scattered classic LT pulls, likely with no BH.  The longer dilution goes on, the more I expect that same decision to come up.  Even though 120CP is a “bad deal”, at some point I’d rather play with a usable champ than see all my non-champs to continue to stagnate indefinitely.

HoundofShadow

In 2014, players were already talking about dilution and the game dying. Fast forward to 2018, these statements still exist. The game is still healthy and players are still spending money on the game. The game should have ceased to exist within 3 years if the devs are doing a terrible job. Marvel/Disney would have pulled out of MPQ if it's not generating ROIs. It doesn't mean that the devs are always doing a good job. They make mistakes here and there. But you can't deny that they are trying to balance things and make things better.

Looking at facts or timeline alone, they seems to made change(s) yearly, somewhere in the middle of the year. I suppose they need to gather 1 year of data to see how each change affects the game ecosystem.

In November 2015, they introduced Command Points.

In July 2016, they increased 4* odds.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/48314/heroic-packs-4-star-odds-increase

In March 2017, they introduced Bonus Heroes.

In April 2017, they introduced Heroes for Hire.

In May 2017, they had a FAQ about dilution:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64068/answers-to-the-8-questions-about-vaulting-5-2-17

In June 2018, they made changes to 4* pack odds again:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/73159/update-to-4-star-pack-odds-6-4-18

In June 2018, they implemented win-based PvP again.


Next, based on what I observed, if you are a competitive player (top 10 or higher), you can easily get 8-10 covers of a new 4*. As a 3* player, I can get about 6 covers if I play competitively. I think casual players get about 1- 3 covers of new 4*. I think the problem kicks in when you are a casual player and you expect to cover a 4* as fast as competitive players.  So, there's mismatch of expectation in this aspect. 

I think the next problem is 5* players jumping down to lower SCL whenever there's new 4* release. It affects the rest of the players who have no chance of getting top 5 or top 10.


If we were talking about trend, they might be adjusting 4* acquisition rate again in the middle of next year.

Moon Roach

Obviously it's because we now have Dazzler so there is nothing more that needs to be said.

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

In 2014, players were already talking about dilution and the game dying. Fast forward to 2018, these statements still exist. The game is still healthy and players are still spending money on the game. The game should have ceased to exist within 3 years if the devs are doing a terrible job. Marvel/Disney would have pulled out of MPQ if it's not generating ROIs. It doesn't mean that the devs are always doing a good job. They make mistakes here and there. But you can't deny that they are trying to balance things and make things better.



If we were talking about trend, they might be adjusting 4* acquisition rate again in the middle of next year.

In my opinion the 50/50 4* solution was the best one they came up with for dilution, it stopped the too fast pace of vaulting but offered a decent answer to dilution. I'm not aware that the Devs have ever really come out with a reason why this system was changed (if they did it would be great to have that posted in this thread), I can only imagine it is tied to revenues and maybe as anti-hoarding measure although I think that is really more of a 5* thing. I had thought that previously with the move to Boss Event for 4* releases that the Devs had also struck a reasonable balance but again these seem to have gone away in favour of the rat race.

Hound also said:

I think the next problem is 5* players jumping down to lower SCL whenever there's new 4* release. It affects the rest of the players who have no chance of getting top 5 or top 10.

See now this brings up an interesting question. If this is really happening, why is it happening? We have seen testimony in this thread and others that a range of 5* players don't really care about 4* characters. (Note: I am not saying this is a fact across the 5* tier, just noting that some players identifying themselves as 5* players have said this). If this is in fact true then the players earning these rewards don't care about them so why are they pursuing them by dropping down to lower levels? Maybe a forum poll or something would shed light on this and whether it is in fact a widespread practice. If it is the case that the rewards go to those who don't care about them (but they pursue them anyway by dropping down levels) that is a strange system to drive forward interest in new releases and also again brings up the question of whether SCL are doing their job. Whilst no obvious answer (and not every 5* player will be doing this) the only solution I can really think of is to have Pve go to progression only for all rewards (with placement rewards merged in) - that way more players have an opportunity to gain rewards instead of them going to a group of players to whom they are basically worthless.

Or maybe Hound is way off with his feeling on this?

broll

HoundofShadow said:

Next, based on what I observed, if you are a competitive player (top 10 or higher), you can easily get 8-10 covers of a new 4*. As a 3* player, I can get about 6 covers if I play competitively. 

That's assuming your blessed to live/work in a timezone that allows you to be competitive for placement....  There are large chunks of people barred from the door at the start due to time slices.

As to the rest of it, the reason the game has continued to be successful despite problems is that new players come in to take the place of vets that hang up their hat.  The worse dilution gets the less inviting the game is for new players to be willing to stick with (also more expensive for those that want to buy their way in).  There will eventually be a tipping point where the game is so unfriendly to new players and enough vets give up that the game will collapse.  Since we don't have all the data we can't really predict that adequately, just speak to our experiences and those of other's we've heard.  But the higher they stack characters into the tiers is like playing a game of Jenga, eventually the tower is going to collapse from it's own weight if they don't fortify it in some way.

broll

DAZ0273 said:

Hound also said:

I think the next problem is 5* players jumping down to lower SCL whenever there's new 4* release. It affects the rest of the players who have no chance of getting top 5 or top 10.

See now this brings up an interesting question. If this is really happening, why is it happening? We have seen testimony in this thread and others that a range of 5* players don't really care about 4* characters. (Note: I am not saying this is a fact across the 5* tier, just noting that some players identifying themselves as 5* players have said this). If this is in fact true then the players earning these rewards don't care about them so why are they pursuing them by dropping down to lower levels? 

That's easy.  Vets don't care about the character stats and details is what is being talked about in this thread.  That's not the same as not wanting to roster them and get champ rewards from them.  Every new character is a piggy bank.  The quicker you get it to 13 covers the quicker it starts paying out and you have less wasted pulls from LTs (cause a pull for a 4* you'll never use that isn't champ feels like a waste, you get no rewards for it and no tangible benefit, just closer to the day where you get some benefit from it)

DAZ0273

broll said:

DAZ0273 said:

Hound also said:

I think the next problem is 5* players jumping down to lower SCL whenever there's new 4* release. It affects the rest of the players who have no chance of getting top 5 or top 10.

See now this brings up an interesting question. If this is really happening, why is it happening? We have seen testimony in this thread and others that a range of 5* players don't really care about 4* characters. (Note: I am not saying this is a fact across the 5* tier, just noting that some players identifying themselves as 5* players have said this). If this is in fact true then the players earning these rewards don't care about them so why are they pursuing them by dropping down to lower levels? 

That's easy.  Vets don't care about the character stats and details is what is being talked about in this thread.  That's not the same as not wanting to roster them and get champ rewards from them.  Every new character is a piggy bank.  The quicker you get it to 13 covers the quicker it starts paying out and you have less wasted pulls from LTs (cause a pull for a 4* you'll never use that isn't champ feels like a waste, you get no rewards for it and no tangible benefit, just closer to the day where you get some benefit from it)

That's fair enough but it doesn't really change the crux of the problem being suggested. If the 4* are only being recruited as a "piggy bank" by players who care nothing more about them and could reasonably achieve those rewards by playing higher levels,  they are being removed from players who might actually care and want to use them by players going down SCL. If this is a widespread practice there is still an underlying problem going on here with the SCL system. If players in the 3* tier are already discouraged by dilution, they are going to be even further discouraged by being displaced for rewards they thought they might have a shot at obtaining in the appropriate SCL.

Now I don't know if this really is happening or not, it was just suggested by Houndof Shadow that it is and as they are a 3* player I'm bowing to their perspective.

ThaRoadWarrior

Even as  solid 4* player, I've stopped dropping down to 7 to try for t100 and stayed in SCL8 to get the same reward for t200 placement on releases. I found I'm able to play there slightly less frantically for the same end result (1 cover). A "good" new 4* release for me is 4-6 covers -1 from launch placement, 1 from Shield Training, 2 from PVP/PVE progression, and maybe 1 from the vault if I get lucky. My worst in recent memory was Dazzler where I came out with a 0/0/2, and my recent best was Domino with a 0/2/3. We'll see I guess how Bishop goes.

Dormammu

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Even as  solid 4* player, I've stopped dropping down to 7 to try for t100 and stayed in SCL8 to get the same reward for t200 placement on releases.

SCL 7 & 8 are the same - T100 gets new release covers. You have to be in SCL 9 before it changes to T200.

broll

DAZ0273 said:

broll said:

DAZ0273 said:

Hound also said:

I think the next problem is 5* players jumping down to lower SCL whenever there's new 4* release. It affects the rest of the players who have no chance of getting top 5 or top 10.

See now this brings up an interesting question. If this is really happening, why is it happening? We have seen testimony in this thread and others that a range of 5* players don't really care about 4* characters. (Note: I am not saying this is a fact across the 5* tier, just noting that some players identifying themselves as 5* players have said this). If this is in fact true then the players earning these rewards don't care about them so why are they pursuing them by dropping down to lower levels? 

That's easy.  Vets don't care about the character stats and details is what is being talked about in this thread.  That's not the same as not wanting to roster them and get champ rewards from them.  Every new character is a piggy bank.  The quicker you get it to 13 covers the quicker it starts paying out and you have less wasted pulls from LTs (cause a pull for a 4* you'll never use that isn't champ feels like a waste, you get no rewards for it and no tangible benefit, just closer to the day where you get some benefit from it)

That's fair enough but it doesn't really change the crux of the problem being suggested. If the 4* are only being recruited as a "piggy bank" by players who care nothing more about them and could reasonably achieve those rewards by playing higher levels,  they are being removed from players who might actually care and want to use them by players going down SCL. If this is a widespread practice there is still an underlying problem going on here with the SCL system. If players in the 3* tier are already discouraged by dilution, they are going to be even further discouraged by being displaced for rewards they thought they might have a shot at obtaining in the appropriate SCL.

Now I don't know if this really is happening or not, it was just suggested by Houndof Shadow that it is and as they are a 3* player I'm bowing to their perspective.

I can't speak to that.  I don't drop down and don't see the point of it.  I play SCL 8 or 9.  8 if I the 5E character is below level 350, 9 if the character is above it.  The rewards are much better for SCL9 so I don't understand the benefit in dropping below that if you can do it.  SCL7 & SCL8 are a joke difference so people jumping down from 8 to 7 makes since, but I never do it due to the points missed from the 5E and the potential effect on alliance placement.

AardvarkPepper

Real talk, there isn't much of a discussion for 4* characters because there's just not much use for most 4*s, and the "select" 4*s are more or less understood.

First, "just not much use" - yes 4*s do 4* tier damage, and have particular powers.  But as another poster wrote, whether PvP or PvE, you're going for speed, though I'd add also that players need to have health pack conservation in mind as well.  So the meta really comes down to 4* Rocket and Groot and probably 4* Medusa for heal, 4* Gamora for stun, then you're looking at Captain Marvel and Coulson, America Chavez, Vulture, some others I won't get into here.

But really, what use are most of them?  You won't use them in PvP or PvE either if you have something better.  Even if another 4* is boosted, often it's better just to go with your usual setup rather than figure something new out.  That's just the game mechanics.

Second, "more or less understood" - I don't mean all the finer points of all the characters are understood, nor the combinations.  But really, what does it matter if you can go infinite with 4* Nightcrawler given the right conditions or given the right setup, when it takes a long time to get going, and you can just punch things in the face with 4* Rocket and Groot / Gamora?  Or you can exploit AI weaknesses with 4* Captain Marvel or Rogue, or set up stuns and team damage, or whatever, depending on the situation.  Why talk about weaker combos, or combos that take more setup, or combos that require more thought on the part of the player, when you have a few tried and tested solutions that work in multiple situations?  That's not a rhetorical question.

In sum, I think there's not much discussion because there's just not much need for discussion, given the current structure of the game.

Jaedenkaal

Moon Roach said:

Obviously it's because we now have Dazzler so there is nothing more that needs to be said.

I think you're on to something here.

bbigler

People have rightly complained about token dilution for years, so demiurge has made many improvements over the years to address it. Although the game has improved greatly since the beginning, they have simultaneously created their own problems by insisting to release a new character every 2 weeks. So, despite their improvements, token dilution is still a problem with the 4* and 5* tier. The 3* tier is fine because they stopped releasing new characters for it. 
I wish, wish, wish they would stop releasing new characters for a time and devote all resources to developing new events and addressing players complaints about existing events. 

Jexman

I wish we had more communication from D3 and Demiurge on the future plans of the game.  Where is this going?  What is the goal in mind?  Will new characters never stop?  Will the 4* tier bloat to 100? 150?  @Brigby do you know?

This.

bluewolf

Dilution is the sad result of the catch-22 of adding new characters to generate revenue (roster slots, cover pursuit) and not being able to stop, even if the tier has grown too large.

I hope the answer isn't to wait another 6 months to address it....I have seen hints of a possible 3/4 token being considered.  That would be the only reasonable way to address dilution (increased chances of pulling 4's) in the tier, since I assume the new releases will just never stop.

As a 5* player, one of the things that keeps me engaged (to varying degrees) is being able to place well and get the prizes that the developers have.  It's not so much "how much will this prize help me?" as just being able to win it.  And yes, having the 4 champed is really nice when the covers come in and convert to rewards.  But it is the goal the devs set up for us.  We can easily complete the PVE's, the only question is how fast.  PVP?  You can pretty much achieve what you are willing to pursue.  What's left is acquiring covers and champing the newest character and showing off a bit.

Dilution is truly an issue, especially impacting newer players who are paying attention, so I am hoping the developers have a plan in place.