Forum Brainstorming: Let’s Solve Token Dilution

jtsings

Great topic btw.  I had thought of coming up with this very topic but I feared it would get pushed into suggestions, unfortunately, I called that.  Two suggestions, right now, from me.


1)  We already have the Ant-Man and Wasp event for their covers already made; why can't we just run this event every 3/4 weeks with a different 4* cover up for grabs.  Since it's SCL based, even lower rosters should be able to get the cover.  They could even generate some interest/hype from people by asking the forums, or a survey, to which 4*s they would like to have offered in the event.   It seems to me that their wouldn't be any extra development at all for this, just changing the cover each time it's run.


2)  Probably mentioned already, but the Prologue wasn't very helpful to me starting out playing MPQ.   My idea would be to either make each "act" shield level unlocked (i.e "act" 1 open to all, 2 shield rank 15, three 30, four 45 and five 60) or just have each "act" much higher in difficulty but ramp up the rewards.  For instance:  Act 1&2 could remain as it is but make Act 3&4 have favorite, or voted upon 3* covers, (like Strange, IM40, KK, Wolvie etc.) but at a much higher level than what it is now.  The last "act" could actually have some of the popular or voted upon 4* covers but they could only be obtained by beating fairly high level opponents.  Again the development, I would think, shouldn't be too difficult.  Just keep the prologue as it is but just ramp up the opponent levels and change the rewards offered.  BTW I kind of borrowed this concept from Marvel Contest of Champions, so I guess credit goes to them.

Every little bit would help anyone who's just starting out or fairly new to the game or even people that are pretty deep into 3* land.

Tensuun

There's been a bit of chatter lately about people being dissatisfied with the reward structure offered in PVP as well. So, here's my pitch:

Double the number of PVP events on offer at a time. Run a three-star season and a four-star season, maybe using cutesy Marvel-ish adjectives like "Uncanny" or something.

Three-star season will be basically what seasons already are, except:
- Five star characters are not allowed. Their raw power typically makes the featured character irrelevant anyway.
- Four star characters are not powered up. With the rich variety of this tier, the ability to select good synergies with the featured character is already a substantial advantage, plus a champed four-star with a few bonus levels on it is already a similar level to a max-champed powered-up three-star.
- This gives players with developing three-star rosters a fighting chance against rosters that would otherwise field strong four stars. I believe they'd feel less discouraged about participating.
- The top prize four-star cover rotates through "classic" four-star characters and is independent of the four-star PVP rotation.

Four-star season will be like that week earlier this year when we tried having some four-star PVP mixed in just because. All the same wonderful five star shenanigans and everything, except:
- Events 1, 4, 7, and 10 feature the two four star characters most recently added to the general token pool.
- Other event spaces may be used for new releases as is currently done.
- The remaining event spaces feature "classic" characters on a rotation. It'll take about as long to cycle through these as it takes to cycle through Deadpool Crashes.

If reward tiers remain otherwise unchanged, this just doubles the availability of PVP rewards for "serious" players. It makes the current set of possible PVP rewards more accessible to casual players.

I expect players to perceive "roster and eventually champ a specific character" as a more attainable goal. Classic covers will rotate through faster, so it'll be easier to anticipate a day "soon" when you get that specific color you need and have a good inventive to try hard for it.

Meanwhile, the increase in Hero Point income won't even come close to matching the bump in cover and iso-8 income. The increased variety of covers for unrostered characters dying in the reward queue, and only slightly increased HP income, will in general create more pressure to either buy HP for roster slots or let the cover expire and try again later. Optionally, the progression reward structure could be slightly tweaked so that a small but tantalizing HP prize -- say, 50 or 75 -- sits just above the cover prize.

jamesh

jredd said:

introduce a classic legends token. so those of us in 5* land that only use cp on latests still get pulls from the classic pool. 

I'm curious about how this would help.  If you have CP and want to open classic legends tokens, you already can.

Are you really asking for the game to force your hand in a place where it currently gives you a choice?  Or are you just asking for the game to increase the amount of CP (or CP equivalent) rewards it hands out?

Theghouse

Here are several suggestions ranging from "could be implemented immediately" to "completely brand new feature". Some of these are similar to other options already suggested.

Suggestion A - Solve the useless token problem.  Either make 1* characters champable and farmable, or filter all standard tokens to elite tokens at a certain Shield Rank.  This means all tokens are either building roster or feeding champ rewards. There is still a steady stream of 1* covers available in PVP if any advanced players really want them in 3* land or higher.

Suggestion B - Every 4* and 5* character gets a feeder as soon as they hit the tokens.  For this, some 3* will have to feed multiple characters.  This will require replacing some of the LTs in rewards with 4* covers.  While this may seem on the surface like a raw deal for players in 5 * land, remember that more guaranteed 4* covers equals more guaranteed 5* covers from feeders. Make all feeder information readily available through an in-game official source.  The increased number of rewards changes as characters are added are sure to upset some players who may have just missed a milestone rewards.  To accommodate this, add a reset option for champion characters, much like resetting a vault.  Make it cost 1k HP, same as a roster slot, and the character goes back to base champ level so you can earn all champ levels again.  The sell option will still be available so there is an interesting opportunity cost between flipping for iso and HP payouts vs paying to reset to base level to start the rewards again a little quicker.

Suggestion C - New weekly ”Collector " store.  Picture a cool store page featuring Taneleer Tivan, with a few of the featured characters in the background in giant experiment tubes and containment chambers.  The list of available characters would update weekly to include: this week's boosted list (all tiers), all required characters for this week's PVE, all featured characters for this week's PVPs; so a relatively short list.  The store would have 2 tokens available to buy, a "Collector Heroic Token" and a "Collector Legendary Token".  These would have the exact same prices and odds as regular Heroics and LTs, just a much narrower character pool.  This benefits both new and veteran players, as extended access to weekly boosted and featured characters allows all players to build their rosters for immediate success in current events in all tiers 2* - 5*, while the narrower character pool would allow veteran players to spend their HP and CP to increase odds for needed characters in the diluted wasteland of ever growing 4*s and 5*s.  Mix a couple of these tokens into progression and placement rewards and you've got yourself a winner.  Run a special Collector event featuring these tokens.  The possibilities are endless.

Suggestion D - Bonus Hero Vault.  Each week, a special vault is generated using only a player's individual bonus hero favorites.  Contains only 10 covers: one 5* (10% chance is slightly lower than a standard LT, but it's a guaranteed favorite), two 4* (20% chance is a good bit higher than Heroic tokens but 4* is the worst diluted tier), and seven 3*.  Tokens cannot be purchased in any way and the vault cannot be reset. Tokens to this vault can only be earned in 3 ways.  First, as a bonus reward for those who make in game purchases.  The odds of pulling a "bonus hero vault token" from a bonus reward would be equal to the 100 HP reward so relatively rare.  Second way to earn would be a new reward tied into daily resupply for collecting 7 days in a row.  Third way would be a couple mixed into VIP rewards. Tokens to this vault cannot be hoarded and if there are any unused tokens when the vault flips, they auto pull similar to how covers auto sell at expiration.  This rewards loyal players and spenders with an extremely limited token with a completely controllable and small character pool.  Players can guarantee 1 pull a week with 7 straight days of play, guarantee maybe 1 more a week by buying VIP,  and have a very rare chance at maybe a couple more by spending to activate a month of bonus rewards.  And because it's non-buyable, non-resetable, and non-hoardable,... It's a nice perk that would be pretty much unexploitable.  In the nigh impossible situation that a player would receive more than 10 tokens in a single week, the game can substitute any overage tokens as LTs.

HoundofShadow

I like the idea where drawing 4* in HT or similar tokens will give a guaranteed 4* Bh. It's simple. If it's too excessive, the devs can make it every 2 or 3 4* drawn will give a guaranteed 4* BH.

There are 71+1(Bishop) non-limited 4 stars now. We have another 2 new 4stars by this year, which brings it to 74. Each year, there are 18 new 4*. By the end of 2020, there will be approximately 110 non-limited 4*. So, we could work on a rotation system where the latest 9 and the oldest 9 will have a higher pull rate. They could rotate this every two months. 108 4* will be covered each year.