Is Bonus Heroes enough?

Theghouse
Theghouse Posts: 334 Mover and Shaker
edited September 2019 in MPQ General Discussion
Dilution is obviously a real problem for the 4* and 5* tiers.  In a very interesting post not too long ago by vhailorx, he described any new 4* at all as completely useless to players in the level 340+ champ 4* and 5* game.  Even championed, they are still well underpowered compared to near-max-level champs, and I imagine for players in 5* land they are useful only when required.  For players in the 3* and 4* roster stages, I would say that once players reach the multiple 3* champ stage of their roster, almost any new 4* is useless until it is champed.  As dilution continues to get worse at 4* and 5* tiers, each new 4* becomes increasingly LESS USEFUL to what I imagine is the largest percentage of the player base - 3* players and above.  While not exactly apples to apples, the same general principle applies to 5*.  If you don't get enough covers for them to be useful before they go to die in the classic legendary pool, good luck.

I think it's pretty clear that we're not going to see a 6* tier and release rate is not going to slow down any time in the near future or possibly ever.  So what tools do we have to acquire enough covers for these characters to be useful?  The few potential tools we do/did have are losing effectiveness or have been scrapped completely:
- Vaulting was scrapped and it actually made acquiring older 4* characters much worse.
- Boosted pull rates for certain 4* characters in event heroic tokens, or as part of 10 and 40 packs, become less and less effective as the pool gets bigger.
- Feeders for 5* covers has all but stopped.  Even so, with the ability to acquire specific 4* getting worse with each new character release, this solution becomes less effective.
- 4* tier currently doubles the size of the 3* tier so feeders is not a fix at all for new 4* characters.
- Special legendary stores was a thing for a while, which definitely helped target certain 5*.  However, this hasn't happened for a while, and even if it continued, the growing pool of 5* makes it less effective as only 3 5* characters are featured in each token.
- the chances of having all required characters high enough to complete Shield Training nodes gets lower with each newn character becoming less and less effective.  Also, featuring more recently added characters has been a real kick in the pants.
And I'm sure there's even more I haven't mentioned.

The only relatively unchanged and still somewhat useful feature to combat dilution is bonus heroes.  With current odds it's still very rare to pull 4* and especially 5* BH, and then you have to consider if you can use the cover you get.  So my question is... Is bonus heroes enough? 
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Comments

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,278 Chairperson of the Boards
    There are exceptions at the 3, 4 & 5* tier where characters do not have to be Champed to be useable but mostly, yes.

    And obviously Bonus Heroes are not enough, otherwise I would already have a Champed Jugger4aut. 😀
  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 334 Mover and Shaker
    Definitely there are exceptions.  But even then the exceptions need certain covers to be effective, like okoye's black or Thor's green, and there are few characters like that with absolutely game changing powers.
  • Kletvar
    Kletvar Posts: 94 Match Maker
    The game is going downhill. Devs just don't know that yet.
  • Therealsmkspy
    Therealsmkspy Posts: 254 Mover and Shaker
    100% They are not enough. We all know the solutions, but the whole artificial scarcity tactic is something the devs refuse to budge.
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2019
    killercool said:
    Kletvar said:
    The game is going downhill. Devs just don't know that yet.
    The Devs know it.  That is why there are such frequent new stores to purchase bundles of useless covers.  They are drawing the last blood from the stone.  It is also why they no there is no point responding to anything on the forums any more.
    It's also why they just updated the game engine.

    On topic:
    Bonus heros do help quite a bit in 4* land. I can almost always get a new 4* to 10 covers without getting any covers from placement. I usually get 3 to 4 covers before they enter tokens, a few from progression and about 4 or 5 from bonus heros before they are required in shield training.

    For 5* I feel they are pretty rare. Some kind of streak breaker would be amazing. A way to guarantee you didnt have dry spells of over 20+ pulls with no 5.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,821 Chairperson of the Boards
    Are any players going to think the current state of affairs is OK?  Fine?  Good enough?  That bonus heroes meet the needs of the current character pool?  Maybe a few, but I'm sure they are a tiny minority.  The rest - at least those who are knowledgeable enough about the game, its rewards, etc to understand how it all works - will resoundingly say no.

    But hey, players always want more rewards, right?  There's never enough, we're all greedy whiny entitled people or something.

    How about the developers?

    If you listened to the podcast interview - back in April, mind you - they ruminate that bonus heroes probably aren't really getting the job done.  At least one of them says so.

    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/78178/puzzle-warriors-3-endgame-interview-w-demiurge

    And yet, here we are, 5-ish months later.  Nothing has changed except for another 10 or so characters added to the game.

    Do what you want with that information......maybe they have some kind of plan they will eventually execute....maybe there need to be more players......maybe it's just frustrating.

    I hope the Anniversary has a pleasant surprise in store.
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
    It was never enough. It should have only been seen as a bonus way to pull characters and not a half baked solution of a major problem. I'd like to see a return to latest 12, maybe latest 8, but let each player be able to choose another 8 characters that they want to be able to draw from tokens or packs. So the player would essentially be vaulting the characters that they don't currently want. You could do something similar with 5s, let the player choose eight classic 5s to be in packs so people can focus on the older 5s that they missed out on instead of hoping that they don't pull a Wasp when they're trying to get more Kitty or Bolt covers.
  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    The 4* bundles seem to be an indication of their current plan. $20 for 3 covers. It’s probably appealing to people looking at that huge gap between 3 and 4 land now. 

    Tiered VIP with 4* rewards that switch every month would go down better IMO. However, who cares if you can cover everyone if it will likely take you longer than the game will last to earn enough ISO to champ them? The whole economy needs a stimulus package desperately. 

    I wonder if anyone has done the math on the relative value of a Stark salary with consideration to the ever growing demands of the game. I’d be willing to bet that “dollar” probably isn’t even worth 50 cents today.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Which group of players should the dilution solution be aimed at? it's not possible to satisfy every group of players with a single solution.

    I think there are approximately 108(9*6*2) groups of players. My classifications are based on:

    1) the number of tiers plus number of transition tiers:  5+4=9 

    2) the type of players (total 6): PvE only (competitive (c) and non-competitive (nc)), the same for PvP only (c&nc) and both PvP&PvE (c&nc) 

    3) completionist and non-completionist

    If we were to simplify things, should the solution be aimed at casual players or competitive players who are completionists or non-completionists? 

    As a competitive player and non-completionist with about 640 in-game days, I have about 60 4* whom I have champed and/or at 13 covers. At my tier and type of gameplay, my problem is not dilution, but rather ISO-8.  

    If 4* were made easier to champed, but iso-8 in-flow rate remains the same, we probably hear about lack of iso-8 more often. 

    Let's say any 4* or 5* were made easier to champ, what's the probability that you will use all of them equally often? For me, I'll use only characters that interest me and that's probably 20% - 30%  of each tier.

    I think this question is relevant: how many 4* or 5* do you expect to be able to champ a year, based on your playstyle?

    Do players here want to champ 4* and 5* more easily because they want to use them more often or because they are simply completionists?



  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 334 Mover and Shaker
    HoundofShadow said:
    Which group of players should the dilution solution be aimed at? it's not possible to satisfy every group of players with a single solution.
    The solution doesn't need to target a player group, it should address the problem uniformly because the issue affects players uniformly.  The reality is that the game has failed to keep up with it's own system of inflation. 

    For each new character that gets added to each tier over time, it gets more difficult to acquire covers of that character because of dilution.  As each players roster also gets stronger over time, it also requires more covers of that new character to get them to a usable level.  In my opinion, an ideal solution would increase both the number of chances to pull and slightly increase an element of choice with each new character that is released. 

    If the developers thought the number of CP and LTs being awarded was sufficient when there was a 1/40 chance of earning any one 4*, we should be earning twice as much CP and LTs now that the odds are 1/80 for any one 4*. Likewise, if bonus hero odds were thought to be sufficient when it was introduced, the 3* tier hasn't changed much in size however the 4* and 5* have ballooned drastically.  Those odds haven't been adjusted either.  In fact, I think it should grow even faster than a 1:1 ratio, the point being that it would help new players and old players alike.  New players would get added choice to develop the characters most beneficial or interesting to them, old players who have most other characters already completed could add focus to the newer characters of their choice.

    HoundofShadow said:
    I think this question is relevant: how many 4* or 5* do you expect to be able to champ a year, based on your playstyle?

    I think that question is broken because the system is constantly sliding along a downward scale. Going back to my comments above, if the 4* tier doubles in size and tokens pulls doesn't double as well, you are less likely to champ any character in that tier over any given time frame.  Even if I give a number and the developers change the token odds to immediately make that number the statistical probability for the majority of the player base, on the current sliding scale we will be off that number again very soon given the rate of new character releases.

    HoundofShadow said:

    Let's say any 4* or 5* were made easier to champ, what's the probability that you will use all of them equally often? For me, I'll use only characters that interest me and that's probably 20% - 30%  of each tier.
    I think this question is also broken because as dilution increases, without increasing the size of the boost list or frequency of being a required character, it becomes less and less likely that you'll actually use any character based on them being boosted or required, or part of a synergy with a boosted or required character.  Even if you make it immediately possible to max champ every character within a week, you'll still see the same dominant meta pvp characters and speed based PVE characters used regularly, and a majority of characters will only be used when boosted or required.  If the developers thought boosting 12% of all 4* was ideal when there were 40, is 6% really ideal now that there are 80?

    HoundofShadow said:

    Do players here want to champ 4* and 5* more easily because they want to use them more often or because they are simply completionists?
    I would have to consider all players completionists to a degree.  Aside from the 1* tier, there are both competitive advantages and additional reward incentives to having a complete roster of all other tiers.  I imagine most long term players who make it to the 3* champ phase of the game are building all the tiers in full because they understand that.  I imagine players who only collect favorites and disregard tier building strategy exit the game fairly quickly as they throw away rewards and their roster becomes ill equipped to handle different challenges.  Also because with dilution it's too hard to build their favorites LOL 🤣
  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 334 Mover and Shaker
    shardwick said:
    It was never enough. It should have only been seen as a bonus way to pull characters and not a half baked solution of a major problem. I'd like to see a return to latest 12, maybe latest 8, but let each player be able to choose another 8 characters that they want to be able to draw from tokens or packs. So the player would essentially be vaulting the characters that they don't currently want. You could do something similar with 5s, let the player choose eight classic 5s to be in packs so people can focus on the older 5s that they missed out on instead of hoping that they don't pull a Wasp when they're trying to get more Kitty or Bolt covers.
    I always thought an interesting solution would be to have the classic legendary token operate partially off of your bonus hero selections.  For example, you have a 5% chance to pull any 5* on your BH list, and a 10% to pull any normal classic 5*. The odds don't change for pulling a 5*, but by having only one 5* BH, you get the same odds as the 3 individual 5* in the latest token.

    Same principle for 4*.  Maybe there's an 8% chance to pull a 4* from your BH list.  If you only put one 4* in your BH list, it's roughly 1:12 odds, same as the individual odds of any 4* during the vaulting latest 12 days.

    And all those pulls could still be eligible for bonus heroes!
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2019
    After reading your posts again, I think there are a couple targets:
    1) veteran in 5* land who should be able to max champ their new 4* quickly in order to be useful
    2) players with multiple 3* should be able to champ new 4* quickly, if not they are useless.
    Based on these two target group, this seems to be a call to get Latest 12 back in rotation.

    I strongly believe think it's important to segment and target the group of players who should be able to benefit from dilution solution, not all players. A one size fit-for-all solution is impossible to solve dilution without upsetting the balance and gap between different tiers of players.
    I think I will reduce the number of groups to 6:
    Casual
    1) PvE only players
    2) PvP only players
    3) PvP + PvE players
    Non-casual
    4) PvE only players
    5) PvP only players
    6) PvP + PvE players
    IMO, casual players , who consists of 1 to 5 (I know it seems contradictory), will never catch up. If the solution is targeted at them so that they can champ 4* or 5* more easily, then I think it is a lost cause.
    I think it's also the fact that 2* and 3* rewards are so easily available that they caused 4* and 5* tier transition to appear slow. Because of how easily available they are, rarely are bundle packs targeted at them. We get more bundles for 4* characters, because this is where most of the revenues are coming from for bundles. 

    In short, I think casual and/or impatient players should not be able to (max) champ 4* and 5* more easily without paying money for them. 
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,278 Chairperson of the Boards
    Aren't there hardcore PvE and PvP only alliances out there? These players place highly in their events (because they have to, to keep their spot) - seems kind'a strange to label them as "casual". That has been the case for years, I bet those players don't need to "catch up".

    And 5* and to a lesser extent 4* transition already is slow, with dilution just another needless roadblock put in the way. There are roadblocks at every tier apart from the first level - 2* to 3* transition is lack of roster slots, 3* to 4* transition is iso and dilution and 4* to 5* transition is difficulty of acquiring covers. Why are we getting more cover pack offers at the 4* tier? Because that is where the widest level of dilution is at (of course it is at the 5* level too but the 3 latest legends offers a path). Why do we need 2 roadblacks at the 4* tier though? You, Hound, yourself already stated that you suffer from iso- shortage which was always the traditional method of slowing players down at this tier. Are the Dev's really intent on stopping progression to the 5* tier? How does that benefit them? Don't they want to debut SCL10 at last? It wont happen without higher level players.

    However, if you drag out the transition between each tier for too long then you will lose players and the game will ultimately start to result to more and more cash grabs. At this point in time, to keep things moving forward we need MORE 3* players, MORE 4* players which will hopefully mean MORE 5* players. If not then stagnation will set in and there will be trouble ahead.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's because if they play only one of them, they are missing out on either side of the rewards. They can't enjoy the full resources available in-game.

    Also, I assume you are talking about champing 4* and not max-champing 4*.

    As for roadblock, the moment you step into 4* land, roster slot is no longer a roadblock. One of the dev mentioned last year that 60-70% of HP is spent on roster slots, another 20% on packs and the rest on whatever can be bought with HP. I suspect the monetization has to be shifted from roster slots to packs/vaults for 4* players. Once you champed all 4*, ISO-8 and roster slots are no longer your roadblocks. That explains why 5* players are asking to trade their iso-8 for other resources and why they have excessive HP. Because 5* players have pretty much no roadblock, the roadblock then is shifted to acquisition of 5* covers, which in turns are based on CP. Given that 5* are the endgame as of now, acquisition is even more difficult.

    I don't know long each transition should be but what I can guarantee is that a competitive new player will be able to champ the latest 3 5* without spending any money in the game by in-game day 400. I was already in the midst of  transitioning to 4* land (champed 25 3*) after playing for 5 months and champing all 3* 8 months later. 

    How long do you think each transition period should be for each group of players?
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,278 Chairperson of the Boards
    Well I'm not a genre specific player myself, I guess we throw that one out to the forum generally on whether you can label such players "casual". I wouldn't personally feel comfortable in doing so.

    I also said that roster slot is a roadblock at the 2-3* transition, not the 4. And you seem to agree with me what the roadblock is for 5* players. Although I would say that roster slot becomes something of an issue for the "duplicate 3*" game which as a 4 or 5* player you really need to have a farm running as 2* farms alone wont get you far.

    It is difficult to put a timeframe on tier progress because players play at different speeds and can be hampered by RNG. I'll give you an example - when I was attempting to transition to the 4* tier I did it during vaulting and the period of what are still mostly meta characters. However, I had terrible luck - instead of being able to champ R4G, Medusa, Gamora etc. and greatly accelerate my play, I ended up with XFW, Luke Cage, pre-Buff Wasp pre-buff Mordo. I still got champed 4* (and the Defenders PVP for Luke Cage was a blast!) but they didn't accelerate play. I didn't actually champ Vulture until long after vaulting had ended. You can't adjust for that sort of level of bad luck, Equally - I was never lucky enough to pull a Kitty yellow which would accelerate my game play even though I have her other colours in multiples, yet I have an 11 cover Cable who is OK but isn't getting me anywhere fast. So you can play as much as you like and still not progress as expected or desired. I'm 3 & half years in and by my own reckoning should really be a 5* player by now, it just hasn't happened for me despite playing both sides. There are Day 600 players who are 5* players because they lucked in to a champed Kitty or Okoye.

    I would expect players to be deep in the 3* tier within a year. Transition to the 4* tier then relies not only upon steady play but getting deeper into champing 3* characters for the improved rewards and that takes a while but should be possible starting from your second year. Anything after that is more RNG based than it ever was - for example you can't finish Juggernaut from covers won from playing events alone but if you were lucky you might have a champed Jugg already but RNG can screw you over. And dilution makes RNG much more of an issue.

    Last but least - I have not had a 5* Bonus Hero in more than a year. 365+ days of playing and not one. It might as well not even be a thing. What is the point and can this surely be "working as intended" as the forum used to be fond of asking all the time?
  • shinnaruto
    shinnaruto Posts: 60 Match Maker
    I agree with the "Get the char in latest or completely forget about it". I go through that with all of my 5 stars. I look at the window that they are in the latest packs as my only window to get to 13 covers. If not, then they go to the island of misfit toys with all of the other non champed characters.
    Do not worry though, there is an offer to buy a new costume for Quicksilver!

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