MPQ Sneak Peek: November 2019 Edition (Updated 11/22/19)

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  • GronkSmash
    GronkSmash Posts: 46 Just Dropped In
    edited November 2019
    Is Captian America (Endgame) supposed to be (Worthy) as the Cosmic Chaos placement reward...?
  • ElReyFelix
    ElReyFelix Posts: 101 Tile Toppler
    JHawkInc said:
    Got to say, I love seeing a little bit further out like this.

    Human Torch, Kraven, and Sam Wilson for the next Shield Training, with a little bit of foreknowledge to let people get ready.

    Iron Man, Ghost Rider as the next two classic 5-star Essentials. Guess we're skipping Green Goblin? The pattern has been a little wonky this time around, we skipped and shuffled a couple, Goblin is the only one that's still "out of sequence", skipped but hasn't been revisited yet.

    Then I see Iceman and Professor X, at which point Carnage should enter Latest Legends. The next event (not in the Sneak Peek) should start 11/28. Could be our first 5e with Carnage, could be a Boss for the (US) holiday, delaying Carnage by an event. Either way, having that tiny extra buffer before he's Essential for people to acquire him via Latest Legends if they haven't already, that's nice. Doubled by knowing that we'll have that buffer in advance (as someone who has had bad luck with 5's recently, both a slightly unlucky streak, and a streak of not pulling the characters/covers I want/need, I appreciate it, lol)
    Do you have a list/projection of the order of featured 5e you could share?
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,895 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm just stunned we are getting Human Torch twice as a required ST character in such a short time frame. Makes me really happy I bonused him and opened a bunch of tokens to get him last time.

    KGB
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    JHawkInc said:

    Iron Man, Ghost Rider as the next two classic 5-star Essentials. Guess we're skipping Green Goblin? The pattern has been a little wonky this time around, we skipped and shuffled a couple, Goblin is the only one that's still "out of sequence", skipped but hasn't been revisited yet.


    It seems like once someone is run, that becomes their new slot in the pattern, based on the last time they ran during the Classic cycle.  Goblin was run in July as part of the FarFromBration so it seems like he now falls somewhere after Cap FA.  The run back then was Cap FA, SMPP, Goblin, BSSM, Gambit, one after the other.

    Which (probably) means that after Kitty we get 5HE, DD, Cable, Banner, (skip JJ who was run later), 5Pin, Okoye, 5BW, Strange, Phoenix, Cap IW, and on it goes......
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited November 2019
    @IceIX Is there another new 4* Captain America incoming called Endgame? I'm confused! 
    New Endgame Cap is a really good listener.

    Empathize (6 blue) true heals the team for 2000 hp.  (Passive) if your teammate is going to take damage from an ability, stops 5000 of it.

    Just being there (10 yellow AP) places 6 protect tiles of 500 strength.

    Move on (8 purple AP) supercharges the team.  Places a countdown that makes all damage done do 2000 more damage for 4 turns.
  • UNC_Samurai
    UNC_Samurai Posts: 401 Mover and Shaker
    DPvMPQ as the new release event?  Ugh.

    I say again, UGH
  • DonkeyTeeth
    DonkeyTeeth Posts: 32 Just Dropped In
    The progression reward colors for Doc Ock can't be right. He's a blue-black-green character and it's shown as purple-green-black. it's probably just a copy error.
  • UNC_Samurai
    UNC_Samurai Posts: 401 Mover and Shaker
    IceIX said:
    Updated all sections. Trying something new by eliminating the sub-names for better readability except when there are multiples of a character in a rarity. Should be perfectly understandable, but let me know if there are any issues with it.
    I heartily approve.  I may approve even more if it confuses Ian.
  • CartoonScience
    CartoonScience Posts: 17 Just Dropped In
    KGB said:
    I'm just stunned we are getting Human Torch twice as a required ST character in such a short time frame. Makes me really happy I bonused him and opened a bunch of tokens to get him last time.

    KGB
    On the other end of things, I expected that Capt. America Worthy would be the next essential 4* in SHIELD training, because that makes sense, and I still don't have Torch at level 209 because I've been focused on drawing Cap Worthy covers over the last few weeks.

    It's almost like they lost track of what was featured in the previous SHIELD training.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    KGB said:
    I'm just stunned we are getting Human Torch twice as a required ST character in such a short time frame. Makes me really happy I bonused him and opened a bunch of tokens to get him last time.

    KGB
    On the other end of things, I expected that Capt. America Worthy would be the next essential 4* in SHIELD training, because that makes sense, and I still don't have Torch at level 209 because I've been focused on drawing Cap Worthy covers over the last few weeks.

    It's almost like they lost track of what was featured in the previous SHIELD training.

    Tinfoil Hat Harry says they skipped Worthy because they've given out his covers in a boss event and everyone is chasing him so lots have him well covered.

    On the other hand, Fair Minded Fred says a lot of players may have chased Torch before when he was essential, and this will be the 3rd time you can get covers for him.  So there's been a good amount of opportunity there.

    Honestly I am not sure they are following any specific patterns on ST lately, but shouldn't we just be kind of glad it isn't Wolfsbane who's required?
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,547 Chairperson of the Boards
    I stopped chasing Torch after the SHIELD Training figuring "They won't use him again for a while" and "Worthy will be next up so time to start chasing him".  They played me for a sucker.   So whoever came up with the idea of using Torch again, please "Go tinykitty yourself".
    I did the same and now it is too late! Should'a learned from Ronin.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    This, I suppose, is why you hoard and hoard and hoard......  At least with shards you are only about 27 pulls from a bonus 4 at any time with no bad streaks to worry about.

    I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks shards will make it harder to get people to 209 when Heroics give shards too, every time.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,124 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:
    This, I suppose, is why you hoard and hoard and hoard......  At least with shards you are only about 27 pulls from a bonus 4 at any time with no bad streaks to worry about.

    I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks shards will make it harder to get people to 209 when Heroics give shards too, every time.
    Probably the same reason high school physics class often disregards air resistance on word problems - it makes the full picture of what's going on much less straightforward when you introduce those other factors. Also we don't know what we don't know yet about supplemental shard drop rates, which further complicate the picture. So we look at the easy to math up ones in a vacuum and have our feelings about it all.

    If the picture of feeders changes dramatically like was implied in the shard post, that too could really shift the acquisition rates to the positive. I'll be very interested to see final numbers on shards as they roll out, and compare it to my tracked progress so far in 2019 chasing 4s and 5s via bonus.
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:
    This, I suppose, is why you hoard and hoard and hoard......  At least with shards you are only about 27 pulls from a bonus 4 at any time with no bad streaks to worry about.

    I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks shards will make it harder to get people to 209 when Heroics give shards too, every time.
    Yeah, plus there's the option of spending hp so I think my method will be a combination of hp and token pulls.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    On the one hand, ST has always been about pushing people to chase covers/spend HP and dollars.  But you could probably get really close with some decent placement,  enough so that you could fill in the gap with a bonus if you hit two PVEs hard and the PVP in progression etc.  Or maybe you can get that new person to 10 covers without a bonus, it all depends.  

    On the other hand, dilution - as I have pointed out before - makes hitting 10 covers for more than one person in ST (who you don't already have there) pretty much impossible, even with a week or two of notice, and having hoarded etc.

    As dilution gets a little worse with every release, the goalposts get a little harder to reach on a continual basis and the baked-in advantage of vets solidifies even more.
  • chf5868
    chf5868 Posts: 21 Just Dropped In
    bluewolf said:

    On the other hand, dilution - as I have pointed out before - makes hitting 10 covers for more than one person in ST (who you don't already have there) pretty much impossible, even with a week or two of notice, and having hoarded etc.

    As dilution gets a little worse with every release, the goalposts get a little harder to reach on a continual basis and the baked-in advantage of vets solidifies even more.
    I agree wholeheartedly, I always seem to have 2/3 of ST essentials @ a usable level. But I have never had the money or resources to roster everyone, so I pick up a couple more whenever I can. The dilution problem doesn't seem to have a viable solution on the horizon either, as new additions that aren't finished are getting generic power "placeholder" updates until the character is release ready.

    It seems that events & releases are starting to place a time strain on the beloved MPQ gods. I for one would be MUCH happier w/ say 1 new character a month that was well thought out & worth having than some of the more pedestrian characters that are must haves just because they're new.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,215 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't want to turn this thread into a dilution discussion - plenty of those around.  But long story short, the devs have no incentive to stop consistently releasing characters since they drive spending for a lot of people.  Each new person requires a roster slot and creates covers to chase, etc. 

    Therefore the only way to (even slightly) improve the situation is with reward adjustments.  We finally have a 3/4 token coming as well as shards providing a possible route to increase rewards since they give partial covers.

    We will see how things shake out.