We're Living in a State of Dilution

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  • randomhero1090
    randomhero1090 Posts: 396 Mover and Shaker
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    PiMacleod said:
    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.

    Could take the older LT model and apply to Heroics.  Give a much higher pull rate for the latest 12x 4s.  I mean, at this point, you got to pump out more 4s.

    This game is clearly at the point that a large chunk of the playerbase cares about 5* feeders.  So better draw rates on 4s would be nice, along with feeders for all 5s.


  • brontag1
    brontag1 Posts: 33 Just Dropped In
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    Just an idle thought.. maybe the problem with having so many characters and this dilution issue is to change the game a bit.  A few things that would really help come to mind.. 1)  up the BH chance, 2) let us mark characters as 'retired'.. that way any character the player marks as 'retired' will not be able to be pulled from a vault, and 3) don't make the battle requirements so stiff.. instead of requiring a specific character, change the requirements to things like 'must be an avenger', must be 3 villains, etc.. that way we can concentrate more on the roster we want and let the characters we don't like slide a bit.  
  • Twomp_thaDJ
    Twomp_thaDJ Posts: 237 Tile Toppler
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    jgomes32 said:
    Character dilution and Iso will kill the game. It's just too much to catch up this point. It will either cost a lot of money or take too long to get anywhere. I wouldn't start today and definitely don't recommend the game. 

    The above has been my response to the in'-game survey for years now. But hey, we have character skins now...
    This is also me... every time the survey is put out I give it a 5 as far as recommendation. There is no way I can in good conscience tell somebody to start playing a game that they really won’t be able to start enjoying and succeeding in for at least a year (ftp not whaling). Like would it hurt to drop a 1,2, or 3 star character again.. 


    PS I was a fan of the 5/3 star release we should bring those back so at least we can get some more feeders for our 4 star characters 
  • Rhipf
    Rhipf Posts: 294 Mover and Shaker
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    brontag1 said:
    Just an idle thought.. maybe the problem with having so many characters and this dilution issue is to change the game a bit.  A few things that would really help come to mind.. 1)  up the BH chance, 2) let us mark characters as 'retired'.. that way any character the player marks as 'retired' will not be able to be pulled from a vault, and 3) don't make the battle requirements so stiff.. instead of requiring a specific character, change the requirements to things like 'must be an avenger', must be 3 villains, etc.. that way we can concentrate more on the roster we want and let the characters we don't like slide a bit.  
      A big problem with implementing a "retired" character feature is that it would need to have a limit on the number of characters that could be "retired". If there wasn't a limit then a player could "retire" all their characters but one and guarantee to pull covers for that character. I guess it could be set up that once retired the character cannot be brought out of retirement. That would kind of kill any hopes of ever duplicating a "retired" character later on though.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,308 Chairperson of the Boards
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    There are two basic options....keep the game as is with things continuing to get more diluted or make an adjustment somehow to make pulls/covers feel more important and valuable.

    The adjustment will also result in some other loss.  So going back to 50/50 would make your odds of the Vintage characters drop by a fairly significant amount.  Retiring someone might make duping that 4 much less likely.

    But the game is not the same game it was.  Each addition to dilution changes it.  Your odds of duping a 4 that you didn't bonus are already dropping each time they add a character and your pulls get spread out more.  Like, how long do you think it would take for you to be looking at a dupe Wiccan now?  Mine is 295 and I have no interest in bonusing him...maybe I'll push him to 300 at some point.  Then it would probably be about 5 years before he is maxed, at minimum.  Even the whaliest whales probably have one dupe Wiccan at most.
  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I don't know why we just don't have weekly featured list of characters in tokens.  Just pop 10 - 15 Four stars in tokens and change those Four stars weekly.  Have it a set order that is available on the forum or via an in-game lookup.  If people are waiting for a specific character, pull during that window.

    Of course, Bonus Heroes would be available on all characters.  

    I also like the concept posted by an earlier user of Unfriending a character so that you don't pull them no matter what.
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
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    Unpopular opinion, but maybe it is actually ok? As bad as dilution is, doesn't everyone get to a point where the champs are outpacing the releases? That might be setting the bar too low, but I manage to keep all but the latest 5 or so 4*s champed.

    While it can appear daunting to see how many resources are required overall, they are never required all at once. In the slow transition you can just hoard until you can afford a roster spot, and save covers until you can champ. So they sort of did address some of the concerns of dilution while not touching dilution itself. 

    One change left out of the summary was the increased frequency of Boss Events. Less resource rewards but as long as your alliance finishes its 3 covers for a specific 4, plus the usual 4* cover reward. Boss events are always a key to getting new champs

    Don't get me wrong tho, I would love a return to 50/50 latest/vintage, or a rotating pool. 
  • FesterTester
    FesterTester Posts: 51 Match Maker
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    pheregas said:
    I don't know why we just don't have weekly featured list of characters in tokens.  Just pop 10 - 15 Four stars in tokens and change those Four stars weekly. 
    The idea of dividing the four-star pool into multiple tokens has been proposed since the devs vaulted all but the latest 12 back in March 2017, and players suggested having "latest 4-star" and "vintage 4-star" tokens.  As I recall, the developers absolutely refused to even acknowledge that this had been suggested, though hopefully they would be more open-minded now and at least explain their reasoning if they don't like the idea.

    There are a couple potential problems with rotating sub-sets off the top of my head:
    1) At 12 characters per rotation, we are already looking at more than six rotations to get through the existing four-star characters, and this will continue to increase if things continue as is.  You can increase the number of characters in each subset pool, but then the pools themselves become increasingly dilute.
    2) The most popular characters, typically the "meta", would need to be spread out among the pools, or else you get several pools that few players care about and spend on, and a few that players hoard for.

    You could eventually have two or more subsets available at the same time, or even have all the subsets available all the time rather than rotating.  That would raise the problem of needing to use separate tokens for each, or a way to use the same token at multiple stores, essentially requiring the existing tokens to be converted to Command Points.  I'd be fine with multiple simultaneous stores all using command points after converting the existing tokens, though I can see an argument that this would be too confusing for newer players - although I would argue that the real source of the confusion is the large number of characters.

  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I have what appears to be an unpopular opinion on these boards.

    I hate vaulting. I mean loathe it. I'm talking like step on a Lego in the middle of the night barefoot kind of hate. 

    I like to pull resources as I go. Why? Who says this game will be here in 6 months. You could spend that time hoarding hoping something worthwhile comes along to bust the hoard on, and then get screwed by RNG and be angry you didn't get what you wanted from your hoard. Or you could pull from the so called useless classic tokens. Yes progress will be slow, but you will earn more 4*'s and have more chances at pulling 5*'s. Covering a specific character will be slower. But as many vets on here like to say "a rising tide raises all ships" or something like that. So you slowly raise your 5's and then the tier starts taking off and you champ one after another. The champ rewards kick in for the ones you have camped speeding you up even more. Also the entire squad of top/meta characters is in there.

    Yes it may be slow but you get steady progress and you actually get to play with what you have won as rewards. Instead of looking at some pile of money that you may never have something that fits your definition of worthwhile to spend it on. The only store that has come along that was pretty much universally loved has been the one with kitty thor okoye. Every other group of 3 people say well I really don't want "x" but I want to finish my "y" so I guess I will pull. Then they get mad and quit when to nobodies shock but their own they get the majority of the 2 5*'s that they didn't want from the store and quit in frustration. 

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,308 Chairperson of the Boards
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    One interesting thing about hoarding and dilution is that the increased dilution decreases the value of your hoard beyond the 5* level.  Whatever your draw rate on 5's is, the remainder will be 4's.  So of course, the bigger that pool, the more your pulls are spread out.

    Ex:  Currently there are 77 4's.  6 months ago you would have been pulling from 68 4's, so you would have diluted your pulls about 13% in that time, and therefore your covers are on an overall basis that much less effective in raising your average roster level and champ rewards.
  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
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    PiMacleod said:
    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.
    i keep bringing up the need for a classic legends token. it wouldn't cure all of dilution's ills, but it would slightly increase the amount of old 5* pulls. and increase the amount of 4* covers too.
  • tupacboy
    tupacboy Posts: 125 Tile Toppler
    edited April 2019
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    here's my ramble....  sorry typing this while my daughter naps... my apologies ahead of time if this is kind of a mess.

    i'm on day 390... spent about $45 on this game... i have all 3 star champed, 2- 4star champed and am 8 slots away from rostering all 4 stars.

    i'm struggling to stay positive about 4 star land but its much harder now then when i started this game.

    i pulled over 1200 heroics when i got to 4 star land (stashed them all since starting because i wanted optimal chances once i got to 4 star land) and clearly that was not enough to champ even 1  4 star.

    I've hoarded 3000 cp and about 74 LL as of now.   The reason I don't pull is like others I think the path to just save to about 350 pulls and going to 5 star land makes more sense.  You hope for kitty just so you can compete more in both PVP and PVE. .. you figure i'm basically 1/2 way there and thats with factoring the first 3 months or so I basically didn't add anything to CP nor LL.... seems like a better idea to hoard for another 7-8 months then pulling all and hoping for 4-5 fully covered 4 stars... and then still needing to save for 7-8 months from there to get close to 300 pulls again... 

    PVE is tough because you have to be on the clock constantly and even then you don't have the 5 star to place in scl7, not to mention all the 5 star players that take all the top 10 spots.  You play scl7 basically for progression only at my stage cause at least it guarantees you 1 4 star cover.  PVP is tough because everybody  basically has gritty and you really can't do enough damage to compete, so you strive to get 575 just for the cp.


    one idea maybe is 5cp for a 4 star pull... even then you need 1040 pulls  or 5200 cp with perfect coverage to achieve championing all 4 stars... seems crazy still... 5200 cp give or take earning 150 cp a week = 35 weeks... and that's with perfect pulls...  oyi...

    Another thought is more boss events where its not as time sensitive as PVE... you get 3 covers and a LL if you do full progression and you're in a decent alliance.  But even then... that's just 4 covers.... even if we had 1 event a week... that's a total of 208 covers a year...  

    not sure what's a good solution... but knowing they'll probably add more an more 4 starts moving forward... something hopefully done soon because i'm getting bored of the struggle and basically sucking...

    **Mod note: Post edited to remove profanity. -fight4thedream
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    tupacboy said:
    here's my ramble....  sorry typing this while my daughter naps... my apologies ahead of time if this is kind of a cluster f*ck.

    i'm on day 390... spent about $45 on this game... i have all 3 star champed, 2- 4star champed and am 8 slots away from rostering all 4 stars.

    i'm struggling to stay positive about 4 star land but its much harder now then when i started this game.

    i pulled over 1200 heroics when i got to 4 star land (stashed them all since starting because i wanted optimal chances once i got to 4 star land) and clearly that was not enough to champ even 1  4 star.

    I've hoarded 3000 cp and about 74 LL as of now.   The reason I don't pull is like others I think the path to just save to about 350 pulls and going to 5 star land makes more sense.  You hope for kitty just so you can compete more in both PVP and PVE. .. you figure i'm basically 1/2 way there and thats with factoring the first 3 months or so I basically didn't add anything to CP nor LL.... seems like a better idea to hoard for another 7-8 months then pulling all and hoping for 4-5 fully covered 4 stars... and then still needing to save for 7-8 months from there to get close to 300 pulls again... 

    PVE is tough because you have to be on the clock constantly and even then you don't have the 5 star to place in scl7, not to mention all the 5 star players that take all the top 10 spots.  You play scl7 basically for progression only at my stage cause at least it guarantees you 1 4 star cover.  PVP is tough because everybody  basically has gritty and you really can't do enough damage to compete, so you strive to get 575 just for the cp.


    one idea maybe is 5cp for a 4 star pull... even then you need 1040 pulls  or 5200 cp with perfect coverage to achieve championing all 4 stars... seems crazy still... 5200 cp give or take earning 150 cp a week = 35 weeks... and that's with perfect pulls...  oyi...

    Another thought is more boss events where its not as time sensitive as PVE... you get 3 covers and a LL if you do full progression and you're in a decent alliance.  But even then... that's just 4 covers.... even if we had 1 event a week... that's a total of 208 covers a year...  

    not sure what's a good solution... but knowing they'll probably add more an more 4 starts moving forward... something hopefully done soon because i'm getting bored of the struggle and basically sucking... 
    tldr u wont beat the 5* players for t10, no matter hat you try.  So you have two options.  1: learn how to use the bracket selection rooms to avoid as many 5* rosters as possible or b:

    do do the math to see if t20 plus scl 7 prob is a better haul than T5 in scl6 plus progression.
  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,410 Chairperson of the Boards
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    AlexR said:
    DeNappa said:
    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).
    I disagree with that.
    • The initial hoarding for those 5* will take you longer anyway than it "normally" takes for 4-5* transition, because when skipping the 4* tier you're missing out on LTs from champing 4s and get significantly less LTs from Crashs since you're not pulling to cover your 4* as you're hoarding for those 5*. Also, no cp from 4* champ rewards. So, less ressources = hoarding for those 5* will take longer than usual.
    • Second, even more important-- what's the point? If you skip the 4* tier - which as mentioned will also take a good while - congratulations, you've successfully skipped the most fun and varied stage of the game and you will now be stuck with those 3x latest 5* for a long time. You have no boosted 4*s to get some variety in there. And no feeders champed either, so no help with helping your 5* from there. Hope you like playing those three 5*s, because you just completely locked yourself into them until you cover new 5* from scratch. 
    I champed my first 4* about this time last year (spring of 2018), so while I didn't have the level of dilution 3-4* transitioners have now, it was already not pretty. I'm now comfortably in mid-4* land. The sheer variety of characters you can play around with and make teams with is the best experience I've had with the game. Dilution does need a fix or work-around, but skipping the most varied part of the game can't be it, that's a terrible and unfun solution.
    Skipping the 4* tier doesn’t mean completely ignoring it. It just means don’t bother chasing to collect and champion all 4*s. If roster slot is the main issue while you are in 3* tier, you could also hoard heroic and event tokens as well. What you don’t open now may delay your progress, but it also prevent wasting covers due to roster slot. Keep farming 2*s and dabble into pvp to earn those HP for more roster slots. Once you can afford one, you pull some of those heroic or event tokens till you can no longer roster anymore and back to hoarding. When you hit the 300 pulls of latest/command points, start deciding if the 3 latest 5*s are what you want to jump into the tier with. Maybe check out the special store for alternatives, just bear in mind later tokens doesn’t count towards the ~350 pulls, and remember to save HPfor the 3 additional roster slots too. 
  • AlexR
    AlexR Posts: 427 Mover and Shaker
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    Pongie said:
    AlexR said:
    DeNappa said:
    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).
    I disagree with that.
    • The initial hoarding for those 5* will take you longer anyway than it "normally" takes for 4-5* transition, because when skipping the 4* tier you're missing out on LTs from champing 4s and get significantly less LTs from Crashs since you're not pulling to cover your 4* as you're hoarding for those 5*. Also, no cp from 4* champ rewards. So, less ressources = hoarding for those 5* will take longer than usual.
    • Second, even more important-- what's the point? If you skip the 4* tier - which as mentioned will also take a good while - congratulations, you've successfully skipped the most fun and varied stage of the game and you will now be stuck with those 3x latest 5* for a long time. You have no boosted 4*s to get some variety in there. And no feeders champed either, so no help with helping your 5* from there. Hope you like playing those three 5*s, because you just completely locked yourself into them until you cover new 5* from scratch. 
    I champed my first 4* about this time last year (spring of 2018), so while I didn't have the level of dilution 3-4* transitioners have now, it was already not pretty. I'm now comfortably in mid-4* land. The sheer variety of characters you can play around with and make teams with is the best experience I've had with the game. Dilution does need a fix or work-around, but skipping the most varied part of the game can't be it, that's a terrible and unfun solution.
    Skipping the 4* tier doesn’t mean completely ignoring it. It just means don’t bother chasing to collect and champion all 4*s. If roster slot is the main issue while you are in 3* tier, you could also hoard heroic and event tokens as well. What you don’t open now may delay your progress, but it also prevent wasting covers due to roster slot. Keep farming 2*s and dabble into pvp to earn those HP for more roster slots. Once you can afford one, you pull some of those heroic or event tokens till you can no longer roster anymore and back to hoarding. When you hit the 300 pulls of latest/command points, start deciding if the 3 latest 5*s are what you want to jump into the tier with. Maybe check out the special store for alternatives, just bear in mind later tokens doesn’t count towards the ~350 pulls, and remember to save HPfor the 3 additional roster slots too. 
    First- what you seem to be recommending here - to hoard cp so you don't waste pulls when you can't roster things - is sound advice. Hoarding when you have no HP to roster stuff = good, makes sense. But "hoarding so you don't waste ressources" has nothing to do with deliberately skipping the 4* tier. That's a reasonable thing to do, no matter where you are in the game.
    Second- I fail to see how you aren't completely ignoring the 4* tier like this; you aren't going to champ even a single 4* from event or heroic tokens, the 4* pull rate from them is simply too low and you get too few of them. All you're going to get that way are a bunch of 1- or 2-cover 4* for essential characters. That's not "don't bother chasing to champ all 4*", that's deliberately skipping all 4* play to go directly from 3* to 5* play. Pretty much everything I wrote above was exactly in answer to that. /shrug.
  • tupacboy
    tupacboy Posts: 125 Tile Toppler
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    so i got 3 x 10 heroic pulls plus 3 form my alliance ranking on seaons end....after pulling got 3 more heorics from leveling....  pulled 1 - 4star gwen from it total... more and more i feel like skipping 4 star and just hoarding to 5 is the way to go
  • Palookaville
    Palookaville Posts: 83 Match Maker
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    Can't there just be a vault/option to use CPs and all you can get is a random 5* (say 50 cps or 100cps per pull)
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Palookaville said:
    Can't there just be a vault/option to use CPs and all you can get is a random 5* (say 50 cps or 100cps per pull)
    If such a vault was not priced at least 140-175 CP, it would break the economy.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It's not easy to solve dilution because it depends on the following variables:

    1) How many in-game days that player has played
    2) how much that player plays per day
    3) how competitively they play
    4) what they play (DDQ, PvE, PvP, Lightning Rounds etc)
    5) how much they spend a month
    6) if they spend, what did they spend on?
    7) RNG 
    8) Others?

    Probably we can work backwards.

    There are 77 4* now. 

    1) How many pulls should it take to champ a non-limited 4* from zero cover by pulling from:

    a) Heroic Tokens
    b) LTs/Classics

    2) How many 4* should a 100% FTP player transitioning to 4* land be able to champ a month after champing all 3*?

    Note: IMO, Champing all 3* takes about 6-10 months. But, it depends.

    3) What type of 100% FTP players should be able to accomplish the above?

    The reason for using 100% FTP players is because this group has the least number of variables, compared to paying customers. We could use percentage to work out the other groups of players after working out 100% FTP players.

    You can't solve dilution without taking into account the above variables...

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