We need Another 3/5 Star Combo Character

marvel075

It's been a good year since we've gotten a new 3 star, so I thought about the next 3/5 star combo being...

3 star rescue (pepper potts) and 5 star rescue (endgame). Since the movie is still popular and it would be a good way to have her introduced into mpq with her original costume and her new endgame costume,..

what other characters would also make for a good 3/5 star combo?

//Added Spoiler Tag Due To Endgame Content -Brigby

Dragon_Nexus

I think they dropped this idea because they can make money selling costumes now.

JHawkInc

Mysterio would be a fantastic example for Far From Home. One MCU-based, one classic comic look.

Whatever their reason for refusing to release more characters below the 4-star tier, I think it'll ultimately come back to bite them if they don't do anything to keep the game fresh for the lower tiers. Can't encourage veteran players to spend if they quit and you aren't doing anything to make more, you know?

DAZ0273

Whilst not a fan myself, Mysterio definitely sounds like a good candidate for this.

There is an 80 years of Marvel event coming up in the comic books in August which looks like it might be a pretty big event so we might get stuff around that as there wont be any more MCU films unless they do something for Dark Phoenix.

Dragon_Nexus

JHawkInc said:

I think it'll ultimately come back to bite them if they don't do anything to keep the game fresh for the lower tiers.

I was thinking about this today.

Whether you're a 5* player or a 1* player, the game content is basically identical. Sure if you're a 1* player you're not going to make it far in ny of the modes, but there's nothing the 5* players can really access that you cannot.

So those of us mental enough to have seen every anniversary event in 5* land are stuck waiting for a way to earn 5*s more reliably so we've got something to do with our ISO. Those in 1* land see a huge mountain they need to climb.

ThaRoadWarrior

I was just talking about this yesterday with an alliance buddy. I really like reserving the 5* tier for the classic goofy-look versions of characters (Doctor Octopus), so a 3/5 Mysterio where 5* is throwback Fishbowl Head and 3* is the MCU version would be great. 

pheregas

I just max champed Angel.  Please don't make me start over with another first run 3*...

Daredevil217

pheregas said:

I just max champed Angel.  Please don't make me start over with another first run 3*...

This. Adding two characters (a 3 and a 5) makes the mountain in front of new players bigger; not smaller. And it actually extends the transition. Adding a 48th 3* also would not give new players “something new to do” or “keep the game fresh for lower tiers”. It’d just be another impediment to transitioning to the best tier in the game. 

Steve111

3* should be expanded to support the increasing amount of 4* without feeders. 

DAZ0273

Daredevil217 said:

pheregas said:

I just max champed Angel.  Please don't make me start over with another first run 3*...

This. Adding two characters (a 3 and a 5) makes the mountain in front of new players bigger; not smaller. And it actually extends the transition. Adding a 48th 3* also would not give new players “something new to do” or “keep the game fresh for lower tiers”. It’d just be another impediment to transitioning to the best tier in the game. 

It depends on the 3*. You can't argue that Dr. Strange or Thanos didn't have a massive impact on the 3* tier. So obviously another Elektra or Angel is mostly useless but another quality 3* addition that is part of the meta at that tier would help 3* players.

St_Bernadus

Steve111 said:

3* should be expanded to support the increasing amount of 4* without feeders. 

Something definitely needs to be done about the 3-to-4 feeders. Not having 2 separate characters fed by 2 3s when there are a whole host not fed at all would be a start.

bluewolf

There are a couple ideas here at play:

1.  Does adding a new 3 bring something new to the tier?  I feel like any character adding to the dilution and delaying the transition to the 4 tier needs to significantly impact your play/success.  It's an open question as to whether the design space for 3's is such that the devs want to/can offer a new character that somehow improves your success rate beyond the ones already in game.  I feel like Strange, Thanos, and Hawkguy were the farthest they want to go in this direction and any new 3 would be just another mediocre character that adds nothing significant to the game.  So I'm definitely not in favor of diluting the tier and requiring another roster space for no significant change in your gameplay.

2.  Add a 3 (or a bunch of them) to feed the 4s who are unfed.  Or, a way to try to address dilution.
So currently there are 47 3's in the game, all feeding various characters (some are doubled up).  That means from scratch, someone needs to collect 13 covers (minimum) to champ each 3 + get them from 166 to 183 (17 covers) for that first 4* cover, so 30 covers total.  Currently that's 1410 covers.  You get them pretty often, so it seems like no big deal, but it's still a lot of covers and making that number larger just delays the 4* delivery that much for all of them.
There are, I think, better options to the 4* dilution option.  As long as we are pie-in-the-skying about 3* feeders, the idea of having 3's start to give out more 4's per 3, and maybe 2 each as we add 4's, makes more sense, but you'd still run into the limit of 94 4's eventually.  Also, adding those covers in by changing the champ rewards would invariably upset a huge number of players who are working on champing their 3's and would miss out on a lot of covers.

Tweaking draw rates, resource availability, or bonus rates probably would work better in the long run.  We will see what the developers come up with.

PiMacleod

While a new 3* wouldnt bother me at all (the bonus heart function gets it done quick)...

I think the newer players might enjoy another way to grab another 4* character through champ rewards.

Yes it's another person to collect for... but it doesnt take too long to get most if not all of the 3*s champed.  Once that's done, they are firmly in the LONG uphill of getting and champing 4*s.  Any extra 3* is welcome.  Any 2 that feeds a 3 is fun... its helps us to feed our 4s.  It's all cyclical.

But I think this also comes with the caveat of needing to restructure the 3* bonus covers so that theres no more overlap and thus more 4*s could be covered.

Also, while I dont have the numbers myself, I'm pretty sure 3* covers dont bring in cash to the game as much as 4* covers (or higher).  That alone would probably stop them, unfortunately.

pheregas

PiMacleod said:

While a new 3* wouldnt bother me at all (the bonus heart function gets it done quick)...

I think the newer players might enjoy another way to grab another 4* character through champ rewards.

Yes it's another person to collect for... but it doesnt take too long to get most if not all of the 3*s champed.  Once that's done, they are firmly in the LONG uphill of getting and champing 4*s.  Any extra 3* is welcome.  Any 2 that feeds a 3 is fun... its helps us to feed our 4s.  It's all cyclical.

But I think this also comes with the caveat of needing to restructure the 3* bonus covers so that theres no more overlap and thus more 4*s could be covered.

Also, while I dont have the numbers myself, I'm pretty sure 3* covers dont bring in cash to the game as much as 4* covers (or higher).  That alone would probably stop them, unfortunately.

I guess for me it just comes down to the roster slot.  A new 3* will eventually require me to have two roster slots.  One for the max champ and one for the rewards dupe.  And while a 4 or 5* could have that happen, it happens so sparingly that its only happened once in my 5+ years and a lot sooner with 3s.  Adding 3s will just make that horrible 300 character slots happen that much sooner and I have no desire to start ponying up 2k HP per character for 3s I can't use anyway due to MMR.

ZootSax

bluewolf said:

Does adding a new 3 bring something new to the tier?  I feel like any character adding to the dilution and delaying the transition to the 4 tier needs to significantly impact your play/success.  It's an open question as to whether the design space for 3's is such that the devs want to/can offer a new character that somehow improves your success rate beyond the ones already in game.  I feel like Strange, Thanos, and Hawkguy were the farthest they want to go in this direction and any new 3 would be just another mediocre character that adds nothing significant to the game.  So I'm definitely not in favor of diluting the tier and requiring another roster space for no significant change in your gameplay.

That's an interesting concept I hadn't previously thought about.  Strange and Thanos definitely helped lessen the PVE grind for 3* players, Hawkguy introduced AP gain through special tile matches to the tier, Angel had targeted AP denial for 3*'s and even Elektra introduced damage negation to the tier (rather than reduction or a post-damage heal, like Deadpool's black), even though as a 4* ability the same had been around for quite a while.   If there was a similar ability which could make the game less grindy for 3* players, I'd be in favor of it, but I agree that adding a character for the sake of it is probably not productive.

PiMacleod said:

Also, while I dont have the numbers myself, I'm pretty sure 3* covers dont bring in cash to the game as much as 4* covers (or higher).  That alone would probably stop them, unfortunately.

As a related idea to this, I'd also be curious if having a more attainable character as a 3* who could be acquired more quickly might keep newer players interested long enough to invest in the game than simply just having a 5* as a MCU tie-in which a new player might see as practically unattainable.  I always assumed that was a large driver of having so many characters repeated across the tiers (and the 3/5 releases, specifically).  There's only 12 5*'s who don't have a 3* variant and several of those (Ghost Rider, Jean Grey, Kingpin & Wasp) have 4* variants.

I'm sure the metrics are out there and, as you said, likely impacting the decision. 

JHawkInc

I would think that dilution for the 3*s is something that should also be addressed, not something that should stand as a reason for not adding any more 3*s.

Saying that we shouldn't slow down the process of getting to the 4* tier makes you wonder why the 3* tier and lower is considered so "skippable" in the first place. Why is the focus "get players to the good stuff faster" instead of "make ALL of it good stuff?" It's odd that three of the five tiers of characters are considered obstacles for getting to the "main" part of the game, you know?

I don't really have a solution for it.

But I don't think adding a 3* or two every year is going to break people, either. Giving newer players the hype of new characters to help convert them into veterans sounds more than worth the (overall) minuscule cost of the increase of dilution and the cost of a roster slot.

pheregas

JHawkInc said:

I would think that dilution for the 3*s is something that should also be addressed, not something that should stand as a reason for not adding any more 3*s.

Saying that we shouldn't slow down the process of getting to the 4* tier makes you wonder why the 3* tier and lower is considered so "skippable" in the first place. Why is the focus "get players to the good stuff faster" instead of "make ALL of it good stuff?" It's odd that three of the five tiers of characters are considered obstacles for getting to the "main" part of the game, you know?

I don't really have a solution for it.

But I don't think adding a 3* or two every year is going to break people, either. Giving newer players the hype of new characters to help convert them into veterans sounds more than worth the (overall) minuscule cost of the increase of dilution and the cost of a roster slot.

I will say that as much as I don't think we need more new characters in the game that the mechanics of having a dual 3/5 release was actually fun.  You didn't work and strive for a given character and feel sad because you didn't get the 5* version of it since you got the 3*.  Either way you had the character (even if it wasn't the higher tiered version).  

JackTenrec

pheregas said:

I will say that as much as I don't think we need more new characters in the game that the mechanics of having a dual 3/5 release was actually fun.  You didn't work and strive for a given character and feel sad because you didn't get the 5* version of it since you got the 3*.  Either way you had the character (even if it wasn't the higher tiered version).  

Except only with the caveat if the characters themselves are fun.  3* Angel and Elektra never get any use except as essentials (to be fair: they were introduced when I was well into the 4* tier -- but counterpoint: 3* Thanos and Strange still get called up from the minors once in a while).  They're practically trophy characters and are a waste of roster slots for most players that would be the prime beneficiaries of a dual release.

Taganov

I think we're at saturation with 3* and below. Even if the character is fun, this ultimately adds more bloat/dilution/roster slots. I agree with new fun characters, but am unclear how a 3* accomplishes that.

Daredevil217

JHawkInc said:

I would think that dilution for the 3*s is something that should also be addressed, not something that should stand as a reason for not adding any more 3*s.

Saying that we shouldn't slow down the process of getting to the 4* tier makes you wonder why the 3* tier and lower is considered so "skippable" in the first place. Why is the focus "get players to the good stuff faster" instead of "make ALL of it good stuff?" It's odd that three of the five tiers of characters are considered obstacles for getting to the "main" part of the game, you know?

I don't really have a solution for it.

But I don't think adding a 3* or two every year is going to break people, either. Giving newer players the hype of new characters to help convert them into veterans sounds more than worth the (overall) minuscule cost of the increase of dilution and the cost of a roster slot.

Who considers those three tiers skippable? Anyone hearing that needs to find a new alliance. 

The 1* tier is there to teach basic MPQ mechanics with simple uncomplicated characters. You collect them to move through the prologue and get a taste for the game. This is ultimately the most skippable tier, but serves a purpose. 

2* tier is the richest farming tier. I hear people saying “make sure you roster all 2s before 3s” for that reason. A rotating group of 2s will ultimately be more beneficial than your 30th 3*.

The 3* tier is where 85% of essentials are in PVP. You can either just play PVE or go it with loaners. Either way you’ll have a rough go of it. 

The 4* tier is then most fun tier bar none but is probably the second most skippable due to dilution. However, “skipping ahead” is tough because I think it’s hard (maybe impossible) to keep up with 5* releases without those 4* champ rewards. So you better like those latest 3 you hoard for. You’ll be playing them awhile. 

The reality, is by the time you get to the end of the tier, adding a Gambit, Elektra, Angel, or Star-Lord isn’t changing your game or making it exciting. You know what is? Getting that Grocket champed that you’ve had bonus heroed forever. Near the end of the 3* tier, you are looking at those half covered 4s with excitement, not more 3s!

DyingLegend

Let's try and solve dilution first. Til then, I can't get excited for any new release. I'm very salty towards the whole topic.....