My wild theory: CL10 might actually come soon(ish)

DarthDeVo
DarthDeVo Posts: 2,176 Chairperson of the Boards
I've been thinking about this off and on over the weekend, and I think the combination of the release of the shards system, along with the introduction of Mighty tokens, could potentially pave the way towards CL10 opening.

Maybe not soon, but I do see a potential way forward. Here's why. 

For the longest time, I thought CL10 would need to include a 5* cover in at least placement rewards to entice players to tackle the challenge. However, to my knowledge, there has only been one time that a 5* cover has been directly earnable through placement/progression: the first run of Civil War. So d3 offering 5* covers in placement/progression seemed unlikely, even if it were limited to T5.

But now we have shards (or will shortly, anyways). Rather than reward a whole cover for a specific character, d3 now has an option of giving away a partial cover. 

Maybe T5 (or just T1) gets enough shards to equal one full cover, T10 gets 400 shards, T20 gets 300 shards, T50 gets 200 shards, T100 gets 100 shards. PvE progression could maybe be 100 shards for the 5*.

PvP placement maybe could be something like 300 shards for T5, 150 for T10, and again 100 shards in progression.

Those numbers are probably way too generous, but it's merely to illustrate a point. Maybe cut all those numbers in half to get a more realistic picture. 

And I'd think in CL10, Mighty tokens would maybe replace Elites completely. Those seem geared not only to those making the 3* to 4* transition, but also those of us running 3* farms and rostering 4* dupes.

So, that's my wild theory. What do y'all think? Again, don't get too hung up on the specific number of shards I suggested, it was more to flesh out my illustration. The d3 we all know and love likely won't be that forthcoming with shards, but any extra progress towards that magic 500 number certainly wouldn't hurt in my opinion. 

Comments

  • WiDoW0042
    WiDoW0042 Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
    Well one thing is for certain.  If CL10 does materialize, it will come sooner today than the day they first announced it was coming soon.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Given that 1 full cover of 5* is equivalent to ~25000 HP, I find it unlikely they will give that much to the players. It's more likely to be  10 shards, 5 shards, 3 shards, 1 shard to top x placement.
  • crackninja
    crackninja Posts: 444 Mover and Shaker
    Given that 1 full cover of 5* is equivalent to ~25000 HP, I find it unlikely they will give that much to the players. It's more likely to be  10 shards, 5 shards, 3 shards, 1 shard to top x placement.
    10 5* shards for placing very well in an event means it will take 50 such placements to equal a single cover, except the shards will be spread out over all of the 5*'s meaning it would take years for that momentum to build.  That's just not worth fighting for.
    My hope would be to fit it into progression rewards so we can all actually benefit from the feature if we play the game.  Make scl10 much harder but still beatable by baby 5* rosters, and put some really solid rewards in progression, like have two shard payouts like the cp rewards, one for 25 mid-progression and one for 50 around full progression.  Similar model for pvp.  At 75 shards per event, that's roughly 375 per week, adding up to 39 covers per year, roughly 1 cover per 5* in a year (and dropping as new 5's are coming).  Now I have hope of actually finishing my classic 5's if I'm willing to invest the time, but the additions are small enough that I'm still buying the daily shard offers because I need way more than 1 or 2 covers to finish them.
  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
    I've heard rumblings of a character revision in the pipeline too. and they keep saying feeders arn't dead. at any rate, it's nice that they are actually working on the game. even if we don't see all the changes as positive.
  • Vins2
    Vins2 Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
    If I'm gonna be fighting enemies in the upper 500s, especially against trolly teams like the royal family, the carrot at the end of the stick should be very purpley.
  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    I believe cl10 would be a good thing because there are to many ppl in cl9 right now. And many are doing it to easily. It seems the great difficulty is to end a grind in less than 25 mins 
  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 497 Mover and Shaker
    I want cl10 if it means that them kids will get off my cl7 lawn!
  • tupacboy
    tupacboy Posts: 125 Tile Toppler
    When did the scl10 coming soon start?  I've been playing 600 days and it was there when I started.   Just curious on how long it has been
  • UNC_Samurai
    UNC_Samurai Posts: 401 Mover and Shaker
    I doubt SCL10 is on the short calendar.  That would require SCL9 to be crowded enough to separate.

    And, because the difference in rewards between 7 through 9 is frustratingly minimal, there are a lot of players who should be in 8 or 9 playing down a level.
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,601 Chairperson of the Boards
    tupacboy said:
    When did the scl10 coming soon start?  I've been playing 600 days and it was there when I started.   Just curious on how long it has been
    Shield Clearance Levels (in the comics) go to 10. We've had up to level 10 (in the game) listed as "coming soon" since they launched the feature, way back whenever that was. It's why it went up to 10 even though only 7 were available in game at launch. It's the same reason 9 was on there (instead of just going up to 7 and having 8 as "coming soon" and nothing beyond that).

    So yeah, I don't think it's ever been on the "short calendar". Soon is probably the wrong word, but there's not a great way to phrase "coming eventually but without definite arrival date."

    I do think that shards allow the devs a tighter level of micromanagement that would let them increment the rewards up to SCL10 easier and better to their liking. It'll probably be just like the split between SCLs 7-9 ("frustratingly minimal"), and I doubt SCL 10 will prevent people from dropping down levels (beyond the fact that having 8-10 would let them lock out SCL 7 at a certain shield rank)

    But it would give them somewhere to raise the challenge and rewards for those that are willing to pursue it. I could see SCL10 coming after they tinker more with shards and continue rolling them out and experimenting with them elsewhere in the game.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    I could see Shards helping the movement toward making CL10 available, BUT, not without universal Shards. They would need to be separate from Character-specific Shards.
     
    Character-specific Shards will not be enticing enough for many to jump up to 10 from CL9 or lower. 

    Insert "Event Reward: 50 Banner shards" jokes here.

    General non-specific Shards would certainly make CL10 more plausible soon-ish.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    I've had this same wild theory.  We'll see.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,244 Chairperson of the Boards
    SCL's started in September '16, and SCL 9 was added Sept '17.  So you can decide whether SCL10 was truly "Coming Soon" 2 or 3 years ago.

    I continue to believe that IF SCL 10 ever debuts, the rewards gradient will continue to be laughably inadequate and you might get 20 shards for a 5 or something at best, and 8 more CP or so.   In exchange for even more time spent on your clears?  No thanks.  Is there really a huge population of players who want to exchange another 2 hours or so of their lives for an extra pull a week (maybe)?

    And want to point out again.....the playerbase in the top tiers remains very steady; not really showing the growth you imagine the devs want to see before fragmenting it and offering more people better higher-placement rewards for the (basically) same effort.