Events big enough to warrant a feeder character?

Daredevil217

KGB, I take some issues with your arguments. 

- If a brand new 4* was released as a feeder for the previously released 5* that could only encourage spending as you are now chasing two characters. 

- I doubt this game lasts two more years at the rate they’re going. So yes I feel that’s an unreasonable wait time. 

- Once you champ a 5* they get used while god boosted and the duration they are featured heavily while in Latests. Then they are used maybe 1-2 times a year when featured for most players/characters. There’s heavy incentive to champ while in Latests for whales, but after that the return on investment goes way down. Giving some extra covers for a character featured once a year (ie waiting for them to rotate out) seems reasonable. 

- Just because dilution is a problem in the 4* tier does not mean it shouldn’t be addressing it in the 5* tier. That’s some weird logic. They should be looking for solutions there too. 

- You mention new players get only 1 4* cover from progression (that’s really some worst case scenario stuff). But those same players won’t be pulling in 6 covers from feeders. The ones who are pulling in massive covers from feeders are the same ones champing 4* in a month (it’s not any “easier” for them to cover 4s) and the ones getting a single 4* cover from progression are likely MAYBE getting one cover from a feeder (not any easier for them either). You can’t compare vets getting 6 5* covers from a new feeder and newbs getting 1 4* cover from progression and conclude that 5* are easier to get than 4*. 4* are also earned in PVP progression, featured vaults, are featured twice twice minimum in PVE before Shield Training (and are also earnable in ST), way higher BH drops, etc. 

For reference I have over 20 5* champs and at most will get 3 covers from a feeder (but 90% of the time only 2 covers. That’s it). 4* I usually champ before they are required for Shield Training (Torchy here is an exception but already at 11 with 1 saved). 

purplemur

 Snidely Whiplash to derail the thread: We need more 3's!!!
When they announce the release of 3* Mantis and 3* YellowJacket and 3 * LIMITED Morph we should get a feeder update for them for a 4* that doesn't have one yet which will then feed a 5*

Since the feeder trees don't make sense anyway (yeah mizz Lee talking bout you) I think they could totally just tie 5* feeders to whatever new 4* release comes after. I get how massively unpopular it would be to mid range vets who it would not help but we would at least have a pathway...

As to the question what event is " big enough" I think Meet Rocket and Groot. It's good enough for Release after Release...."It's big enough... I guarantee you, there's no problem there" 

This could all be tied monetarily as well - announce a feeder and give us a bundle for 25 bucks and see how many people buy in -  I hate myself for it but when I was debating saying Yes to the Dress w Medusa's Costume knowing I would get a BB made the difference and that wasn't even enough to finish him! 

The players w/ dupe 370's are not the ones who need feeders and most likely spend a TON already so where's the negative if they get 6 (or 12 or 18) covers for a 5* that is already plus 500? That's not tipping the scales in Whales favor anymore than the placement rewards already do.

KGB

Daredevil217 said:

KGB, I take some issues with your arguments. 

- If a brand new 4* was released as a feeder for the previously released 5* that could only encourage spending as you are now chasing two characters. 

- I doubt this game lasts two more years at the rate they’re going. So yes I feel that’s an unreasonable wait time. 

-

I believe I said releasing a brand new 4* feeder sometime after each 5* would make a ton of sense. So for example maybe next month we get a 4* Mags to feed the new 5* ProfX. This definitely encourages spending while at the same time ensuring no one starts with any covers for ProfX. I'm pretty sure most players would understand and get behind this approach.

As far as 2 more years go, I've been reading for at least 3 years now that the game is about to shut down (it's mentioned in every long complaint thread as you are well aware). When it actually shuts down, no one has the slightest idea. My personal thoughts on this are that there is no way they would have spent 100+K to change the game engine if the game was not going to run for at least another year. It wouldn't make any business sense to do so in terms of ROI (return on investment). And 100K is probably lowballing the cost (I'm a S/W engineer and I know what is costs us to do things like that) given they had to do it on at least 3 platforms (Android, Apple, PC).

Once you champ a 5* they get used while god boosted and the duration they are featured heavily while in Latests. Then they are used maybe 1-2 times a year when featured for most players/characters. There’s heavy incentive to champ while in Latests for whales, but after that the return on investment goes way down. Giving some extra covers for a character featured once a year (ie waiting for them to rotate out) seems reasonable. 

I'll admit I know nothing about 5* God Mode and how valuable it is since I'm still a 4* player. So I'll take your word on how valuable it is. That's definitely a reason not to release any feeder until the 5* has rotated out of latest.

- Just because dilution is a problem in the 4* tier does not mean it shouldn’t be addressing it in the 5* tier. That’s some weird logic. They should be looking for solutions there too. 

They should be looking for ONE solution for the 4* and 5* tier. Not putting a band-aid on a few 5* characters via feeders. Hopefully that's what they are doing (according to ICE-IX they are aware and are looking at it).

A different band-aid has been the special 5* stores that have occasionally run (like fan favorites this past Feb). They've run another during anniversary only this time they added 4* in addition to the 3 5*s. I bought 50ish tokens looking for Kitty (didn't get a single 1) but got something like 3 Peggy, 4 Carol, 4 Grocket, 5 XWolvie etc. I had forgotten what it was like when they used to have the 12 latest 4* and was astonished to get so many covers in so few draws when often I go months without a single cover of those characters.

So my point here is that feeders and special stores are band-aids on the problem that keep wearing off and having to be re-applied. We need a long term fix for the problem and obviously you and most other vets are clearly aware of that and want that.

- You mention new players get only 1 4* cover from progression (that’s really some worst case scenario stuff). But those same players won’t be pulling in 6 covers from feeders. The ones who are pulling in massive covers from feeders are the same ones champing 4* in a month (it’s not any “easier” for them to cover 4s) and the ones getting a single 4* cover from progression are likely MAYBE getting one cover from a feeder (not any easier for them either). You can’t compare vets getting 6 5* covers from a new feeder and newbs getting 1 4* cover from progression and conclude that 5* are easier to get than 4*. 4* are also earned in PVP progression, featured vaults, are featured twice twice minimum in PVE before Shield Training (and are also earnable in ST), way higher BH drops, etc. 

For reference I have over 20 5* champs and at most will get 3 covers from a feeder (but 90% of the time only 2 covers. That’s it). 4* I usually champ before they are required for Shield Training (Torchy here is an exception but already at 11 with 1 saved). 

You and I aren't newbies to the 4* tier. I have a couple of alliance mates trying to break into the tier and they see things differently from their world.

1 4* from progression is harder than it looks. You don't *have* to have the 4* already on your roster to make the 4* in PvE progression but it helps since they otherwise can't do the 4E node (and all it's points). Even if they do have 1 or 2 covers the node can be quite hard if it has tile movers. So at best they can get 1 4* cover from every PvE since they can't get possibly get a T10 finish with no 5E and often no 4E (or limited clears on 4E). They also can't finish T5 in PvP either. They also aren't regularly getting the 20+ CP from full progression (5 clears ) either for the same reason. So they are having a hard time acquiring covers and CP that for us is effortless (they can't do the DDQ crash and ST is something they can only dream about).

Given 85 characters and on average 3.5 days per PvE it means each 4* is featured roughly once every 300 days. That's barely once a year so 1 cover a year from PvE progression! That's not much of an acquisition rate. The only other way is lucky vault draws (they certainly don't have HP to waste on vaults or HfH offers when they need them for roster slots).

Incidentally, BH drops are exactly the same for 4* as they are for 5* (other than the occasional 4* BH you get via Heroic tokens). They may feel a lot more rare but they are at the same 5% rate.

KGB

Therealsmkspy

Why we didn't get a feeder has to be the biggest gaslighting I've seen here yet.

@Demiurge_Anthony

"There wasn't an "obvious" feeder so one wasn't chosen." Direct quote

You really think you're customers to be that stupid.

ursopro

Alright, to be fair I asked him a question and he answered it, that was enough for me.
We may not like the answer but it is what it is.

bluewolf

@KGB

Your post was very good but the fact that they run the Latest 3 4’s all the time (3 Latests, 2 Classics, repeat) means you need to wait approximately 2 1/2 years to see all the Classic 4’s in pve. 

theomen

ursopro said:

Alright, to be fair I asked him a question and he answered it, that was enough for me.
We may not like the answer but it is what it is.

Why wasn't that communicated on the forum a while ago, or at all?

Thanks for getting us an answer @ursopro if you hadn't we'd still be in the dark.

I don't think you were expecting too much, the answer he gave doesn't even make sense.