Changes in the game and how to fix it.

pheregas
pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion
@Brigby

I really hope this does not fall on deaf ears.  I've spoken with you in the past and have never had a bad interaction and I know that you care for the state of the game.

I am currently on day 1988 of the game.  In two days I'll get a 5* Star Lord cover as a resupply.  In three months, I'll get the Doc Oc cover.  In those 90 days, more than one new 5*s will be released.

Over those many days, I've learned a lot about optimal play, earning rewards, and what time and money I'm willing to put into the game to get as much enjoyment as possible.  I've made goals, achieved them, and made new ones.  My current goal is the line that always moves forward, which is to champ everybody.  I've been very successful (of the older 5s, only Banner, BSSM, Goblin, Hawkeye, and CW:Cap remain unchamped).  For me, it's never been about getting the meta characters to 550.  It's been about just having all the characters and having them ready to use when they are essential, or just to have fun with in Sim.  I'm a collector.  I've got 1,000s of actual comic books to back that up.

The shift though to a more rapid release of 5* is wrecking that fun, though.  Why?  Because since the "death of swaps" and the introduction of Saved Covers (a blessing for 2/3/4*s, but not so much for 5*s) and the increased 5* release rate, champing the 5s has become harder and harder.

In the "old days," I'd pull as I'd go and then usually start saving CP once the oldest new 5* in Latest was champed.  Then any LT that I happened to gain via DDQ or 4* champ rewards would go towards a potential Champ Level (or once a new 5* was announced, I'd start saving the actual tokens as well).  This worked wonderfully for quite some time and I was able to keep up with roster slots and play to my level of comfort.  All my 5*s ended up around level 454 in this manner.

Nowadays, I'm being forced to choose whether to save up CP for the new release store for the recent 5*, just so that I can have that character for the essential PVE that'll be two weeks away from release, or failing to get enough covers to champ the 5* that will be leaving tokens next.  I generally opt for waiting, then pulling for the single cover of the essential 5* so I can participate in PVE, but I've been burned by this strategy before.  The increased 5* release schedule makes that choice even harder.  Starting to get max-champ 4s hasn't helped with the HP crunch either.

Due to the recent in-game changes, I cannot keep up any longer.  Rescue will be my third 5* in a row that will go without championing.  She's at 7/2/3.  In the swap-times, I'd need a single cover to champ her.  Now I still need 3 and a little luck that one of them isn't blue.  Doom and Hela were the same way.  Both of them have 12 covers.  Doom has saved covers, but not enough to swap at 3:1.  Hela has 5 saved covers, so I could swap, but to what end?  She won't be essential any time soon and there's a minimal chance a feeder could happen, so I have zero impulse to exchange.  And now a new 5* will be out in a few days and there's nothing I can do to gather the resources to even pull them without spending a hefty amount of money.  There was zero time to plan for this and my drive to play and compete is even lower, especially since luck will dictate placement in this next Prof X PVE.

If this is the direction of the game, so be it.  But if so, please take into consideration changing the color swaps of 5*s to a 1:1 system.  This will help everyone champ whatever 5* they are working on and allow much more flexibility to play and not make 5* Bonus Heroes for a 2/5/5 character a lost cause.  If things stay the same, I'm afraid I'll be one of the many vets to say goodbye or at least reduce my play by quite a bit.

TLDR: Change saved cover exchanges from 3:1 to 1:1 for 5*s.  The release schedule is unsustainable to champ all 5s.
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Comments

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,822 Chairperson of the Boards
    Why should they make it easier to finish 5's?

    How do you increase revenue if you make it easier to keep up?
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    pheregas said:
     The release schedule is unsustainable to champ all 5s.
    That's exactly the goal.
    Force people to spend if they want to keep up.
  • BigSoftieFF
    BigSoftieFF Posts: 454 Mover and Shaker
    Feeding families or something like that...
  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
    Bowgentle said:
    pheregas said:
     The release schedule is unsustainable to champ all 5s.
    That's exactly the goal.
    Force people to spend if they want to keep up.
    They were going to do that anyway for me once Roster Slot prices doubled.  Now they are double dipping.
  • Waddles_Pines
    Waddles_Pines Posts: 1,229 Chairperson of the Boards
    pheregas said:
    Bowgentle said:
    pheregas said:
     The release schedule is unsustainable to champ all 5s.
    That's exactly the goal.
    Force people to spend if they want to keep up.
    They were going to do that anyway for me once Roster Slot prices doubled.  Now they are double dipping.
    but, but, how else are you going to spend your hp /s
  • peterdark
    peterdark Posts: 151 Tile Toppler
    Liked your post, it was very well written but starting the post with:

    pheregas said:

    I really hope this does not fall on deaf ears.

    made me laugh inside  :D
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,966 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m absolutely feeling this as well. Accelerated releases + less resources = hard decisions for players. 

    The developers are hoping the above equation means we spend more. 

    But push too hard, and players end up giving up trying and/or quitting (which is what you are talking about in the OP). 

    My personal solution is to just let some characters go and fall behind (currently it’s going to be Rescue), which I haven’t really done since I joined the 5* tier. Continuing to “catch them all” would be ideal for me me, but likely won’t happen unless I’m willing to alter my spending habits. So... adios Rescue. 
  • abenness
    abenness Posts: 228 Tile Toppler
    I've played 458 days, but most of that pretty competitively.  So I am bringing in rewards at a reasonable level.  

    My 4* are pretty well covered to champ or bring to 209, with a huge iso debt to work through, but I'm prepared for that.

    I have 2 x 5* that are fully covered, 2 at 9 covers, a few in the middle, 20 at 3 covers or less, and am missing 7.

    Targeting BH to 5* Thor and 4* Valkyrie is what has gotten him to 9 covers so far, but it is such a slow journey.  And gee, won't it be fun working on Okoye after that, starting from a base of a single red cover...

    What I would actually like to see is a way to better target 5* characters up to fully covered.  Just to give me more options to play with at the 5* level.  eg in Classics, give me a 1 in 21 chance of pulling a single cover from my 5* BH selection up to 15 covers total.  Even with 3:1 cover swap, this would get them champ-able, and doesn't change the odds of 5* covers overall.

    Respectfully, I don't want it to be something that can be abused by veteran players or whales, leading to a prevalence of 550 Okoye's or Thor's or Kitty's out there. But there should be some path that every couple of months I could build and champ another classic 5.


  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,759 Chairperson of the Boards
    I do think it is more difficult to cover every 5* but it is not impossible.  I personally don’t spend on the game anymore I bought some hP years ago for for roster slots but have not spent in a long time.  I now have every 5* either champed or just needing a feeder to finish up.  For weaker 5* I did hold off on champing them knowing feeders would finish them off so I would be able to get more of a stronger 5*.  I ended up to champ Storm upon release and now have over 300 pulls for when Professor X goes into packs.  

    I think making new characters be released every 3 weeks would relevances some of the pressure with all the 5* releases and slow down the 4* as well.
  • Dogface
    Dogface Posts: 999 Critical Contributor
    Yeah, or you can just not bother about getting all new characters at once. So maybe you play an event without the essential 5*, who cares?
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    Hi @pheregas

    Thanks for sharing your feedback! What you said makes a lot of sense. I myself am also a collector (176 roster slots and counting!), and so I understand the drive and ambition of wanting to acquire every single character, even if it's just 1 single cover.

    We're aware of some of the challenges players face, and the behaviors players engage in, when they're working on acquiring 5-Star characters. As is specifically evident with Professor X being available for Hero Points, on top of the usual Command Points options, you can tell that our team is looking to try new things; seeing what works and what doesn't.

    Will there be some growing pains? Sure. But hopefully we can work through this process to find some way where we can both improve the experience for players while also being able to sustain it moving forward.
  • A_Wise_Man
    A_Wise_Man Posts: 153 Tile Toppler
    Brigby said:
    Hi @pheregas

    Thanks for sharing your feedback! What you said makes a lot of sense. I myself am also a collector (176 roster slots and counting!), and so I understand the drive and ambition of wanting to acquire every single character, even if it's just 1 single cover.

    We're aware of some of the challenges players face, and the behaviors players engage in, when they're working on acquiring 5-Star characters. As is specifically evident with Professor X being available for Hero Points, on top of the usual Command Points options, you can tell that our team is looking to try new things; seeing what works and what doesn't.

    Will there be some growing pains? Sure. But hopefully we can work through this process to find some way where we can both improve the experience for players while also being able to sustain it moving forward.
    I appreciate trying out new things.  The new store for professor x with token odds as they are means pulling 4 40 packs on average to get one professor x cover, or about $350.  Compare this to needing about 20 pulls on average for a new release store at 25 cp, that's about...$350 worth of buy clubs.  So it's the same, but different because anybody can do it without needing to know the right people to join a buy club.  

    I'm in a similar situation to the OP.  I have always kept up with 5 stars since I switched to pulling just latests about 3 years ago or so.  However, recently I nearly missed covering kingpin (feeder finished him], nearly missed covering doom.  I finished Hela a little early, which was nice and allowed me to stockpile some pulls.  Since the store flipped I am at 150 pulls trying to finish rescue and just 1 single cover to show for it.  I've gotten a couple iceman and storms, but overall the rate has been abysmal.  With the old system of about 18 weeks I would have been fine.  But Rescue will end her time only having had 13 weeks in latests.

    Granted I could pull her from classics once she moves, but the numbers there are far far worse.  It's a shame there isnt some sort of system where you could get increased bonus hero odds on a 5 star (or any rarity) that hasn't yet reached 13 covers.  It would keep people from getting 550s too easily but also ease the pain a bit from an accelerated release schedule.  I have always been a bit of a spender, but these days it's hard to justify.  Spending even hundreds of dollars would have almost no effect.  Spending thousands for most of the playerbase is simply not possible. 

    Again, I do appreciate the new idea and the fact that buy clubs aren't necessary to get it for the same price.  But the overarching issue (severe dilution in classics and dilution of the 4 star tier) isnt helped here.  An accelerated schedule exacerbates the problem.  I dont know what the solution is (more resources and a restructuring of legendary stores could work!) , but I do know that every 2 weeks of more and more and more characters with less and less of a chance of earning them means less and less desire to spend or even play for me personally.  
  • therightwaye
    therightwaye Posts: 459 Mover and Shaker
    Brigby said:
    As is specifically evident with Professor X being available for Hero Points, on top of the usual Command Points options, you can tell that our team is looking to try new things; seeing what works and what doesn't.



    I read statements like this and various other comments here and elsewhere that really suggests to me that D3 didn't know about the CP store. The initial announcement didn't even include a CP store notion. 

    It really seems there is a lot of bad communication or simply lack there of. 
  • Spudgutter
    Spudgutter Posts: 743 Critical Contributor
    Daredevil217 said:

    The taking away something huge in order to give something small has been a staple of the team for so long (I could go through the history but will refrain for now). I don’t know how other players feel, but it personally insults my intelligence. 
    The number of times that i have posted about "one step forward, two steps back" when they make a change is too high.  I stopped being surprised long ago, but i am with you, it is insulting for them to act as if we should be happy with a positive change when there is clearly a net negative as a whole
  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    Hi @pheregas

    Thanks for sharing your feedback! What you said makes a lot of sense. I myself am also a collector (176 roster slots and counting!), and so I understand the drive and ambition of wanting to acquire every single character, even if it's just 1 single cover.

    We're aware of some of the challenges players face, and the behaviors players engage in, when they're working on acquiring 5-Star characters. As is specifically evident with Professor X being available for Hero Points, on top of the usual Command Points options, you can tell that our team is looking to try new things; seeing what works and what doesn't.

    Will there be some growing pains? Sure. But hopefully we can work through this process to find some way where we can both improve the experience for players while also being able to sustain it moving forward.

    @Brigby

    I sincerely appreciate the reply.

    I would like to mention though that switching to an HP model is a non-starter for many of us players.  As it stands, I earn enough HP through placement rewards and PVP to maintain the current requirement for roster slots (i.e, the release rate of one character every 2 weeks.)  This allows me one or two shield per PVP and the aforementioned roster slot.

    I have 250 roster slots.  I also figured that I have 16 characters that are 250+ that will require dupes within the next several months.  That means that, in the current new character every two weeks model, that I will hit my 300th roster slot in 68 weeks.  Of course, I'm sure I'll hit it sooner than that.

    Either way, as it stands now, the HP needs will increase further once I hit 300 roster slots.  If I am already only barely keeping up and can afford maybe one 10-pack pull every season or so.

    With the 40-pack odds being as low as they are, plus the scarcity of HP, if you want to implement a system of HP for the new 5*, fine, but at least simultaneously have a CP store and announce the rarity of the new character 2 weeks in advance so we have time to stock up.  

    The way this rolled out with HP, zero notice of the way the character would be available, plus it being immediately required is certainly disheartening and makes me seriously question my gameplay style for future releases.  

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