We're Living in a State of Dilution

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bluewolf
bluewolf Posts: 5,305 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion

About a year ago (June 2018), we saw the odds of pulling 4’s change where you no longer have weighted odd on the 12 Latest 4’s.  Since then, we have been asking what could be done about dilution.  There has been no response. (Other than some occasional stores offering 50/50 odds on select groups of 12 4*s.)

At the moment we have 77 4’s (including Talos) and there has been virtually no pause in the release schedule, with 11 non-Limited 4’s added since the change in June 2018.  Soon we will have 80 4’s in game (plus the Limited 4).  The sheer size of the tier is the biggest barrier in the game to new players, and significantly slows everyone’s roster advancement and needs some addressing.  I feel like it is the biggest current issue facing the game.

In every category - getting, building, using 4’s - doubling the size of the tier has - perhaps obviously - made each cover and most characters (at least the non-meta ones) half as helpful to you (and made new player’s resource needs twice as high). 


Past changes

While the number of 4’s and 5’s has gone steadily upward - and therefore the cover needs - the resource increases in the game have been the same for a while.

Feb 2017:  Deadpool Daily Quest adds CP - 43 4’s in game

March 2017:  Vaulting began, favoring Latest 12 4’s - 45 4’s in game

May 2017:  Progression rewards increase along with play requirements - 48 4’s in game

Sept 2017:  SCL9 added to PVE - 54 4’s in game

June 2018:  PVP Hybrid make wins an option for players AND Full Dilution (no more Latest 4’s) begins - 66 4’s in game

Feb 2019:  Support Circuit adds CP opportunities - 75 4’s in game


Acquiring 4*’s 

There are a lot of individual differences here.  A newer player will not get high end rewards from their roster, while vets will be getting LTs and CPs all the time from champ rewards.  I came up with an approximate mid-range estimate of what you might expect to get.

If you played really hard in SCL9, you might be getting about one cover per month for each 4, maybe an extra for a dozen or so more.  (On average of course).

I’ve been tracking my Heroic tokens as a measure of how many a high end player might receive and came up with an average of 174 tokens or about 12 4’s per month.
Looking at the CP you can receive in game from events, you can get 212 from progression in SCL 9 playing all events (including the new SC giving 10 CP/week, or 40 every 5 weeks).  You’ll get some LT’s from the Crash, sometimes daily rewards, champ rewards.  Let’s say you get 240 CP a week and 5 LT’s a week (possible) and you get 12 pulls by going after Classics with your CP.  That’s 17 pulls a week.  Over a month that’s 68, or about 9 5’s and 59 4’s.  So we are at about 71 4’s a month.  Adding 20 4’s from progression in all events and you have about 88 4’s, so about one and 1/10 cover per 4 per month.  (Bonus on 68 is about 4 BH 4’s, maybe 5).
This model assumes someone hitting 1200/75 wins every PVP, and many players won’t do that or can’t if their roster isn’t big enough.  So you might be closer to 80 covers per month and you’re adding one per character on average.
It also doesn’t include lucky vault pulls and player spending choices on bundles (which have become much less common lately), but chances are you’re averaging 1-2 a week from vaults, not impacting things much.
Final note:  A Classic pull with 80 4's would have about 112 possible character results (not including colors) and a Latest pull, about 83 possible results.


Resources Needed

Let’s look at the difference now between finishing 80 4’s vs 45 4’s (when Vaulting and an attempt to address dilution began).  Note:  I know that more resources are available, but I feel confident in saying the changes in September 2017 only increased them maybe 20-30 % and they certainly have not kept up with the constant stream of characters.

Covers:

If you happened to pull all the right colors for 80 4’s and finish them all with just 13 covers, you’d need 1,040 covers.  Assuming you on average need 3 extra (I think that’s the general consensus) you get to 1,280 covers.   You needed about 720 covers when vaulting began.

Iso-8:

If you started from scratch and wanted to level 80 4’s, you’d need about 29 million iso.  My ballpark of good iso gain is 50K per day when playing high and getting lots of champ rewards, so that would be about 580 days of play.  Back when vaulting began, you needed about 16.4 million iso to champ all the 4’s.

Roster Slots:

By the time you are rostering 4’s you are probably (assuming you rostered 1 1*, all the 2’s, and all the 3’s) about 16 slots from the 1000 HP cost.  So you’d have about 64 4’s and 31 5’s to roster, currently, each one costing 1000 HP to roster or 95,000 HP.  This need has gone up by 35,000 for 4’s.


Effects on play/access

4* Boost list

For every champed 4 you have, you get to see them boosted every 16 weeks with the current 5/week model.  That means you’ll probably use the “OK when boosted” people only about 3.25 weeks of the year, if that.

Essentials

The PVE essentials have been rotating recently with an LLLVV pattern.  The 3 Latest 4’s are featured, then 2 Vintage ones.  With each cycle taking about 3 weeks (with new releases pushing back a person and boss events delaying the pattern) you will see each Vintage being essential every 2.3 years right now.

PVP

Sometimes you see a 4* PVP, but they still pretty uncommon.  You might see one a year for some 4’s (Dino gets one, and maybe some of the 4’s that are more heavily featured in TV/movie properties).  But most 4's, you will probably need for a featured PVP about every 2 years or more.

Crash

As the Crash of the Titans takes 5 days to run, 80 4’s will run 400 days or over a year.  Of course, the developers run certain people more frequently (like Dino every anniversary or special runs around movies/TV), so it’s really going to be even longer.  You can, of course, win Crashes with some undercovered 4’s, but it certainly helps to have them well covered if not fully leveled.  Anyway, each rostered 4 then gets you about 0.9 LTs a year from the crash.


Roster Growth

It’s a little hard to quantify how much each pull grows your roster and progress.  But it’s easy to understand that when your pulls produce a smaller set of results, you end up with useable/champed 4’s faster and the champ rewards go up pretty more quickly.  Conversely, the more possible results from one pull, the less each helps you.  Currently each 4 you receive grows your overall roster baseline about half as much as it did in March 2017.

Back when Latest weighting began we had 45 characters in the game.   Instead of your pulls being spread among all of them, you grew 12 characters rapidly.  Each pull was then approximately 3.75X more effective in creating higher level characters and rewards.  They scaled that back a bit a few months later to a 50/50 split; while my math is (I’m sure) off, let’s ballpark that your pulls were still about 1.8X as helpful for building up some 4’s, and getting some higher level champs on your roster.
 Now we have 77 4’s (more coming, obviously) and each cover is about 0.58X - or half - as effective for roster growth than they were back in March 2017.  So you need about twice as many pulls to see the same progress as you did back then.  I’m certain we don’t have twice as much CP/LT’s earnable vs back then, even with the CP gains we got about 18 months ago.


Conclusion:

I know that the SCLs added rewards to play, but they haven’t gone up in a very long time in terms of the game’s overall life.

Progress is harder now than it was 2 years ago when it appeared that the developers wanted to  help players deal with dilution.  In addition, each champed 4 is dramatically less impactful to your play with the long cycles we see in each area where a champed 4 is boosted, essential, or both.  Which makes the argument for actually champing a lot of 4’s less convincing in terms of using the resources, which works against the intent of the developers in my opinion.

At one point a player could come into the 4 tier with the realistic goal of champing them all, using them pretty often, and seeing a lot of play variety.  With the volume of characters now, the goal for a lot of newer players is by necessity to focus on maybe the top third of the tier for champs (if that many) while trying to get the rest to 209 for Shield Training.  The fun of finding ways to fit 4's together and run different teams is much less possible in the current game.  It just seems sad to me that the needs and resources have gotten so far away from the players and developers, but I suppose that is the natural result of the game being successful for so long.  

Solutions?

I have been struggling with solutions - and maybe the developers are too.  If you retire characters to make the remaining ones more relevant, new questions arise.  What is your target, and when have you cut enough?  Taking characters away would also be a poor choice because many players have favorites among the tier.  And ultimately you would end up back where we are anyway.

Adding covers/pull resources is an obvious way to overcome dilution with volume, but the impact on players at different levels is a factor.  Newer people would see more covers if they pull with those resources and feel more roster slot pressure which might make them frustrated.  Longer term players would see a rise in their champ levels which would be great, but the developers might think injects too many resources into the game via champ rewards.  Also, studies in game economies show that giving more resources to players (say, via a sale or in game rewards) makes players less likely - at least in the short term - to chase those resources via cash or play.  So giving away more pulls would probably hurt the game’s revenue.

Using vaulting or special stores is a frequent suggestion and seems like a good compromise, but the developers have been unwilling to fully embrace that model beyond some short term stores.  I think that they should seriously consider having ongoing stores so that people can make decisions about how to use their resources.  

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Comments

  • n25philly
    n25philly Posts: 426 Mover and Shaker
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    Go back to the 50/50 split of older and newest or something like it. (maybe more than 12 if they think that makes it too easy to get newer characters.  Stupid decision to go back to full dilution.  Especially when they lock away content based on you playing 24/7, only bonus heroing one new character and shoving a four leaf clover up your rear and praying for a miracle to get what you need.  I wouldn't expect any good answers anytime soon.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Great analysis.  This is a very serious problem for mpq.  Clearly Demi/d3 can't or won't stop the release schedules that presumably drives their revenue.

    And they seem reluctant to go to 6* land because they know that would alienate a lot of their 5* uberwhale community.

    So they are just digging the hole deeper and deeper, packing the already bloated 4* tier.

    Can't imagine how daunting the 4* transition would be for a brand new player right now. Would love to hear from some in that position if they are here on the boards.
  • n25philly
    n25philly Posts: 426 Mover and Shaker
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    I'm not new, but I am in the 4* transition.  It's not fun.  Back before saved covers it as desperately scavenging for ISO to champ whoever was closest to expiring covers and hoping not to lose too much.  Starting at the last anniversary I decided to kind of let the game decide who to champ.  I would focus on leveling every 4* to level 209 and then champ characters as they are either featured in PVE or if needed to get through a clash.  Well, every event is either a new character I can't get covers for or someone I already have champed so I've liked champed 2 characters this year and now have a near 6 million surplus of ISO.  Of course it is fools gold as I could easily go through that today.

    So now I sit kind of looking for a reason to keep going.  They keep pushing the new characters that are near impossible to get.  I'm not looking at my device at the moment but I think I have 1-2 characters released this year covered well enough to get to level 209.  Counting on bonus heroes is a joke.  On my secondary account I've had my 4/4/4 4* rocket & Groot set as my only bonus hero for 2 months and it's still sitting at 4/4/4.  On my main account I just recently started hoarding all of my legendary tokens and cp, not to get 5* covers but because what's the point?  Getting nowhere pulling or not pulling is getting nowhere.  Might as well hold on in case there ever is a reason to bother anymore.  Or just give up and move on which with the games total disrespect for my time is constantly seeming like a better and better idea.
  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,410 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The solution is to completely skip the 4* tier. Hoard your latest tokens and command points to jump directly to 5* tier with 3 latest (hopefully 3 that are good enough). The 4* tier is just for essentials, champion rewards and feeders to 5*s. 
  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,192 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Sadly, Dilution is probably something that will never be fixed. 
  • jackstar0
    jackstar0 Posts: 1,280 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Pongie said:
    The solution is to completely skip the 4* tier. Hoard your latest tokens and command points to jump directly to 5* tier with 3 latest (hopefully 3 that are good enough). The 4* tier is just for essentials, champion rewards and feeders to 5*s. 
    I basically agree with you, but the problem is that just rostering the 80+ 4*s in addition to your (hopefully viable) 5*s and then all the 2* and 3* characters is the pure HP required for all those roster slots just so you can manage to jump to that "end game"-ish area of play and still get the rewards out there. And in PvP not having a maxed or near-maxed feature puts a bullseye on you.
  • UNC_Samurai
    UNC_Samurai Posts: 401 Mover and Shaker
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    There was NOTHING wrong with the last iteration of the Latest 12 system, where the odds of the most recent 12 were boosted.  It meant that someone who played heavily could be reasonably sure of champing a character before it ever came up in the Crash. 

    Now we're at the point where characters are getting into the boost rotation and might make it into Shield Training where even someone who breaks a hoard of CP can't get enough covers of that character.  The problem is only getting worse.  And Bonus Heroes are woefully inadequate as a compensating system.
  • St_Bernadus
    St_Bernadus Posts: 591 Critical Contributor
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    Great commentary and insight! An excellent read, I hope the powers that be take a look too.
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
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    *Please keep all comments civil and on the topic of character dilution. Thank you!

    If you wish to discuss the topic of value/time/effort in MPQ, then please reply to this thread: Time, Effort, and Value in MPQ
  • abenness
    abenness Posts: 228 Tile Toppler
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    n25philly said:
      I would focus on leveling every 4* to level 209 and then champ characters as they are either featured in PVE or if needed to get through a clash.  Well, every event is either a new character I can't get covers for or someone I already have champed so I've liked champed 2 characters this year and now have a near 6 million surplus of ISO.  Of course it is fools gold as I could easily go through that today.
    Why don't you just go through it today?

    Isn't that enough to champ ~20 toons from level 209 ?  Surely that would give you many more options for teams depending on who is boosted for the week.

    Or is it a case that now your remaining un-champed 4* are under-covered?

    The only comments I usually see about too much iso are from players who have all 4* champed and are then still spending it on leveling up their 5's

    I'm fairly early in the 4* iso grind, spending whatever I get to bring up the best option toon to champ or 209 depending on covers available, so maybe I'm mis-understanding
  • MoonKnight
    MoonKnight Posts: 63 Match Maker
    edited April 2019
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    Great information here. As you and I have discussed, I would posit a way to fix some of the daunting iso crunch would be to double the iso from champ reward covers. That’s a consistent way to gain iso that makes farming a bit easier without really affecting the reward system in the game. It doesn’t combat dilution or the HP problem, however. 

    On second thought, increasing the CP from champ rewards would be beneficial to combat dilution without messing up the in game economy as well. It could also drive up sales of 40x tokens as well if you got more CP from farming.
  • Halleck
    Halleck Posts: 30 Just Dropped In
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    4*s being added to progression of higher SCL and the first two events in the OP caused me to successfully enter the 4* tier. I'm curious if there was a boom in 4* players around the same time.

    Changes that followed had a neutral or negative effect. (Opportunities to earn more CP are appreciated, but when they require significantly more real-world time, they're not applicable to me.)

    I don't need to have all the 4*s. I don't need to have the new ones quickly. However, with the repetitive nature of events, a cornerstone of gameplay variety is additions to my roster - at champion level. I need some progress, even if it's slow. Bonus Heroes are appreciated, but their impact just isn't enough.

    For the reasons listed in the OP, my engagement has been in a downward spiral of playing less and less.

  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,368 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Pongie said:
    The solution is to completely skip the 4* tier. Hoard your latest tokens and command points to jump directly to 5* tier with 3 latest (hopefully 3 that are good enough). The 4* tier is just for essentials, champion rewards and feeders to 5*s. 
    This is what I was thinking as well. If you're not a veteran, and at the end of 3* play, you might be better off hoarding CP and then pulling from 5* stores that feature a good trio of 5* characters. (With dilution also slowly marching on in 5* tier, going classic legends is probably not a good idea).
  • AXP_isme
    AXP_isme Posts: 809 Critical Contributor
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    I agree with @jgomes32 almost completely. I think the dilution forms a barrier to entry that is just too high for all but the most dedicated to overcome. I keep saying that in the surveys but...

    I’m firmly a 4* player but the sheer number of them and the increasing difficulty in covering the newer ones is making me wonder why I continue to bother. I guess that FOMO is the psychological edge that keeps people spending but it seems like there are a lot of threads on the forum from people about to slip over into not caring. 
  • PiMacleod
    PiMacleod Posts: 1,724 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I think they need a new permanent store... or something akin to it. 

    A new place to spend Heroic tokens.  Remember when they started Elite tokens?  That used to NOT be a thing.  But it is now, and it's nice.

    So how about a new type of heroic token store?  Have it accept heroic tokens just like the current one does.  Have the new store keep only the earliest half of 4*s (and of course all 3*s and 2*s)... and the current / regular store keeps just the newest half of all 4*s (and all 3*s and 2*s).

    This way, the player chooses where to spend them, thus trying to aim for a character gets a little easier.  Honestly, you could put out multiple types of these... put out 4 of these stores if you want - each one focuses on one quarter of the 4*s.  But the key is to make sure they all accept heroic tokens, so that the player can choose where they spend their resources. 

    Just a thought.  Obviously change percentages and numbers and whatnot to fit better... you get the idea.
  • randomhero1090
    randomhero1090 Posts: 396 Mover and Shaker
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    Pongie said:
    The solution is to completely skip the 4* tier. Hoard your latest tokens and command points to jump directly to 5* tier with 3 latest (hopefully 3 that are good enough). The 4* tier is just for essentials, champion rewards and feeders to 5*s. 
    I sorta, kinda, did this.  Really not on purpose, just happened.  The Thor/Okoye/Kitty store dropped, I had been hoarding CP, and I got lucky.  So happy it happened because the 4* tier is really.....well......terrible.

    I didn't spend long in the true 4* tier.  Honestly glad I didn't.  If it wasn't for that store and my luck, I probably would have quit.  Even with the money I spent, I was getting burned out.   PVP was such a boosted mirror match drag.

    And when I say 'skipping' the 4* tier I mean in terms of use.  I've covered and champed all sorts of 4s for the rewards.  It's hard to go back to meta 4s after using Thorokoye.

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