How much would you have to pay to cover a 5*?

helix72
helix72 Posts: 996 Critical Contributor
in MPQ General Discussion

Someone in a forum thread asked if anyone had ever calculated how much it would cost to buy a 5*. Well, that got me to thinking. How can you buy 5*’s? And how much would it cost?

Well here we go. I figured I'd start with you choosing a 5* you want to cover and it being a classic. If you're not picky and you will settle for any 5* fully covered (which we'll cover in another installment), the expected cost decreases meaningfully.

PART 1: Impatient Unlucky Rich Newbie Buy Strategy for Covering a Specific Classic 5* from Scratch

CP is the only way to directly buy covers:

-For 20 CP (a classic token) you can effectively “buy” 3 shards, or 3/500ths of a colorless cover. It would take 500/3 or 166.7 purchases to get enough shards for 1 cover. This equates (at the classics rate) to 166.7 x 20 = 3,332 CP per cover

-For 720 CP, you can buy a cover for any color as long as you already have 1 of that cover.

Obviously 720 is much better than 3,332, so I’ll need one of each color using shards, then I can buy the remaining 10 using direct CP purchase.

1500 shards / 3 shards per classic = 500 classic pulls (none of which are the 5* we want)

500 classic pulls x 20 CP per pull = 10,000 CP for the initial 3 covers, then 720 CP x 10 = 7,200 CP for the remaining 10, totaling 17,200 CP for all 13.

You can buy 7 CP for $100 (you can pick whether that comes with 20K HP or 78K ISO). This is a newbie, so let’s assume for the moment he/she doesn’t know about buy clubs.

17,200 CP / 7 = 2,457.14, rounded up to 2,458 x $100 each = $245,800

Did you know your covered 5*s were worth so much? And some of you are F2P!

PART 2: Impatient Unlucky Rich Newbie Buy Strategy for Covering a Specific Classic 5* from Scratch with Buy Club help

Same as Part 1, but now, thanks to the buy club, the Newbie gets 140 CP for every $100.

17,200 CP / 140 = 122.9, rounded up to 123 x $100 each = $12,300

I could buy a lightly used Ferrari with that savings! Even a mega whale would have to notice that. Now if only you could find 140 buy clubs where all 20 people reliably made the $100 purchase every time.

PART 3 and Beyond

In later parts I'll work to incorporate some of the other ways to get covers.

Some are direct but not guaranteed:

-You could naturally pull a cover for the 5* you want covered. The chances of naturally pulling a latest you want from latests ( 15% / 3 = 5% ) are much greater than the chances of pulling a classic you want from classics ( 15% / 41 = 0.37%), so even though the CP cost per pull is higher (25 vs 20), the specific expected covers per CP are much greater (5% / 25 = 0.20 vs 0.37% / 20 = 0.02)

Some are guaranteed but not always available:

-4* feeders (not every 5* has a feeder)

-For 250 or 500 CP, you can buy a cover IF it is featured in the HfH store (but you can only buy one cover once)

-For increasing HP, you can buy up to 400 shards (80% of a cover) IF it is in your daily shard offers

-You can earn shards in PvP and PvE but the characters rotate and may not be the one you want

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Comments

  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wow............ 
  • Yepyep
    Yepyep Posts: 954 Critical Contributor
    A simple démonstration of wealth disparity. Thanks.
  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,814 Chairperson of the Boards
    A fool and his money...

    700k revenue per month, there’s a lot of them.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2020
    I have no idea how often buy clubs happen, nor how hard it is to get everyone to spend $100, but I assume they are humming along with Poccy and Hulk being in Latests.

    Anyway, mostly you've demonstrated how utterly hopeless it is to cover most Classics at this point and how utterly foolish it would be to do so via spending and pulling there.

    Yesterday I was ballparking how much it would cost to cover all 3 Latests using cash to buy CP in buy clubs and came out with about $6K for all 3 (assuming decent distribution, and probably sharding at least one of them to make sure you got to 13).  Still a lot of money and ridiculous!  I have only bought VIP for the past few months and my Hulk is about to get to 12 covers.  Yelena is 10 with 1 1/2 saved in shards, Poccy is 7 with one in shards being held.

    But anyway, you're talking about 12K+ for one single Classic vs 6K for all 3 Latests.  Utterly ridiculous.  

    I have no idea how many whales are in buy clubs (I estimate probably up to 200 who do it all the time?  maybe 300?)  but the game takes in approx a million a month, I think, between Android (700K) and iPhone.  I suppose Steam with its 350 odd players throws some money at the game too.  However, the estimate of total players is about 250K.  If they made VIP better you might get more buy in at the $10 a month level, which simply isn't that much really for most people.  And that would be $2.5 million right there if you got everyone to buy it.  Imagine if VIP gave you one single cover for a Classic (random token) per month.  There are 41, soon to be 42 Classic 5's which equals 546 covers to get them all to 13, or approx 45 years of VIP.   :D

    Of course, we know the majority of people spend $0.  Oh well, it's a weird business model IMO.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    If we were to frame things by asking these two questions:

    How much disposable cash do you have? How much is your time worth?

    Assuming 200 working hours per month:

    1) If you earn $2000 a month and save 40% of your salary, it will take you 16 months to save that amount ($12,300). ($10/hour). 

    2) If you earn $20,000 a month and save 40% of your salary, it will take you 1.5 months to save that amount. ($100/hour)

    3) $100,000 per month or $500/hour, it takes you 3 days to reach that amount.

    As a 100% FTP, I'm confident that 100% FTP competitive players will be able to save enough LT and CP to pull for all 3 latest characters within 360 in-game days. Play time would be about 12 hours per week and it will reduce as your roster gets stronger. That's approximately 624 hours a year to champ 3* latest 5*.

    For the above three scenarios, 624 hours of playtimes are worth:
    1) $6240 
    2) $62400
    3) $312, 000

    For scenario two or three, it's worth it to spend $12,300 to cover latest 3 5* right now rather than spending 624 hours playing competitively to champ 3 latest 5* because of their earning power. For scenario 1, it's faster to play competitively for 624 hours rather than save  $12,300 to champ three latest 5*.



  • krakenoon
    krakenoon Posts: 355 Mover and Shaker
    I would gladly start purchasing VIP monthly if I felt the rewards (not only there but in general) were able to keep me at a steady pace. It would be about the equivalent of one AAA game every year and I’d likely get more play time out of MPQ than said AAA. If I were truly satisfied with my progress, I might even purchase the occasional deal.

    The realization that tier bloat is an inevitability has instead pushed me to go straight F2P (along with the current, worsening rewards structure). I simply can not justify purchasing anything in the game when there’s this constant shadow of it failing because the 20% (or whatever non-whale spenders contribute) stop spending and the player base keeps sinking. To be clear, I WANT to pay the devs for the product, I just don’t think it’s worth the same thing they or the accounting dept think it is.
  • MadScientist
    MadScientist Posts: 317 Mover and Shaker
    edited June 2020
    To answer this question I dusted off my old mpq simulation code by replacing bonus heroes with shards. The simulation was performed as follows:

    • Select a target 5-Star character.
    • Set the 4-Star target to the best feeder of the 5-Star target. If there is none, use Wolverine (X-Force).
    • Set the 3-Star target to the best feeder of the 4-Star target. If there is none, use Wolverine (Patch).
    • Start with a completely empty, unlimited roster with unlimited Iso-8
    • Repeat the following steps until the target 5-Star character can be championed:
    • If there is a heroic, mighty, legendary token or enough CP for a classic of latest token, open it.
    • Otherwise, buy a heroic 40-pack for 11400 HP if possible. 
    • Otherwise, buy 20000 HP + 7 (or 140 in a buy club) CP
    • All covers are applied, characters are champed if possible and champion rewards are collected. Max champs are sold to be recruited again.
    Three different strategies were considered:
    • Buy latest tokens for 25 CP
    • Buy classic tokens for 20 CP
    • Do not buy and tokens and buy covers directly for 720 CP
    I performed simulations for each current 5-Star character, for each of the three strategies, and for the two possibilities of purchasing all HP bundles in a buy club or not. I did 1000 random runs for each setting and recorded the mean and standard deviation of the number of HP bundle purchases until the 5-Star target can be champed.

    Here are some results:

    Apocalypse (Classic) / buy latest / buyclub: 31.1 +/- 6.8
    Apocalypse (Classic) / buy covers / buyclub: 45.0 +/- 11.4
    Apocalypse (Classic) / buy latest / no buyclub: 82.9 +/- 22.3
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy covers / buyclub: 59.4 +/- 2.2
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy classic / buyclub: 82.0 +/- 9.8
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy classic / no buyclub: 163.4 +/- 6.5

    The full data can be seen here in csv-Format:
    Character,CP Usage,Buyclub,Mean,Stddev
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.341,6.80887
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.602,7.2458
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.625,6.92115
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Covers,true,43.517,10.5997
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Covers,true,44.915,11.5849
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Covers,true,44.988,11.3812
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Covers,true,56.654,2.26236
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Covers,true,56.69,2.13492
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Covers,true,56.716,2.22291
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Covers,true,56.784,2.33267
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Covers,true,56.789,2.26373
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Covers,true,56.805,2.30499
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Covers,true,56.883,2.22605
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Covers,true,56.939,2.2435
    Gambit (Classic),buy Covers,true,56.944,2.23402
    Professor X (Classic),buy Covers,true,56.947,2.28784
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Covers,true,56.967,2.2777
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Covers,true,56.978,2.23551
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Covers,true,57.007,2.33687
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Covers,true,57.01,2.2356
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Covers,true,57.02,2.25424
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Covers,true,57.025,2.20009
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Covers,true,57.032,2.23047
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Covers,true,57.05,2.19442
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Covers,true,57.065,2.29102
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Covers,true,57.07,2.22556
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Covers,true,57.076,2.16754
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Covers,true,57.084,2.18562
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Covers,true,57.102,2.17844
    Archangel (Classic),buy Covers,true,57.105,2.33751
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Covers,true,57.122,2.25768
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Covers,true,57.143,2.1782
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Covers,true,59.119,2.06127
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Covers,true,59.226,1.99372
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Covers,true,59.398,2.16739
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Covers,true,59.408,2.25201
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Covers,true,59.506,2.26759
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Covers,true,59.509,2.23873
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Covers,true,59.514,2.25562
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Covers,true,59.573,2.18281
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Covers,true,61.166,1.55256
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Covers,true,61.189,1.60102
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Covers,true,61.332,1.44353
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.163,13.027
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.283,13.2331
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.292,13.1614
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.045,9.84901
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.074,9.71136
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.075,9.75035
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.116,9.6736
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.129,9.73213
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.13,9.88176
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.165,9.95931
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.218,9.84482
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.231,9.72757
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.319,9.79128
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.35,9.86577
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.361,9.61294
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.409,10.1617
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.426,10.0286
    Archangel (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.446,9.84292
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.519,10.002
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.549,9.73055
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.569,9.7651
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.586,9.75923
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.634,9.83829
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.646,9.89468
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.721,9.90137
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.781,9.67104
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.809,9.9753
    Gambit (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.891,10.0194
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.92,10.1808
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.003,9.8242
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.171,9.69741
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.211,9.7344
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.238,9.67509
    Professor X (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.291,10.0102
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.38,9.63211
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Latest Tokens,false,82.537,20.8198
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.635,9.81396
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.856,9.85298
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,82.915,22.2871
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.014,9.62226
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.188,9.44969
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.302,9.54876
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Latest Tokens,false,83.403,21.2361
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Covers,false,87.072,21.2256
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Covers,false,87.254,21.0774
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Covers,false,88.777,20.2478
    The Hulk (Immortal),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.668,23.4829
    Apocalypse (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.899,22.5518
    Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.952,23.1689
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.737,0.87626
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.742,0.824279
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.744,0.855841
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.778,0.845409
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.78,0.84119
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.808,0.878143
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.827,0.836105
    Professor X (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.831,0.839309
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.852,0.884362
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.852,0.841484
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.856,0.904027
    Archangel (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.862,0.892724
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.881,0.952281
    Gambit (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.889,0.889201
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.893,0.819482
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.905,0.937003
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.909,0.901509
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.911,0.864337
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.912,0.910086
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.921,0.913651
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.934,0.918501
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.938,0.911129
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.953,0.877947
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.956,0.885474
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.956,0.951874
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.975,0.871995
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.308,1.70386
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.31,1.98844
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.333,2.03178
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.393,1.81178
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.394,1.93772
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.426,1.9881
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.428,2.0201
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.493,2.10712
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.674,2.69179
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.778,2.66059
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.828,2.69489
    Havok (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,136.423,17.022
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Classic Tokens,true,136.864,17.0775
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Classic Tokens,true,137.084,17.0283
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Classic Tokens,true,137.239,17.0943
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Covers,false,146.092,2.93965
    Professor X (Classic),buy Covers,false,146.391,3.20595
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Covers,false,146.525,3.24151
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Covers,false,146.554,3.14024
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Covers,false,146.556,3.15925
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Covers,false,146.581,2.96099
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Covers,false,146.66,3.14681
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Covers,false,146.69,2.98461
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Covers,false,146.733,3.12245
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Covers,false,147.048,3.13874
    Gambit (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.113,3.14615
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Covers,false,147.129,3.08583
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Covers,false,147.16,3.09684
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Covers,false,147.162,3.10447
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Covers,false,147.165,3.17266
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.195,3.03298
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Covers,false,147.197,3.07281
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Covers,false,147.226,3.00115
    Archangel (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.249,2.9995
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Covers,false,147.268,3.11579
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Covers,false,147.27,2.91017
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Covers,false,147.303,3.1105
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Covers,false,147.313,3.04418
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Covers,false,147.329,2.82538
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Covers,false,147.411,2.96143
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Covers,false,147.434,2.96676
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Covers,false,152.015,2.93782
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Covers,false,152.213,3.26399
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Covers,false,152.434,3.02781
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Covers,false,152.488,3.01991
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Covers,false,152.525,2.98218
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Covers,false,152.562,2.9692
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Covers,false,152.613,3.07526
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Covers,false,152.763,3.28859
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Covers,false,155.128,2.67388
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Covers,false,155.202,2.5755
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Covers,false,155.281,2.87855
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Classic Tokens,false,159.98,8.69101
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.114,8.50382
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.364,8.29527
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.469,8.54933
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.471,8.48016
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.523,8.46685
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.56,8.42119
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.571,8.55646
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.634,8.20159
    Professor X (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.639,8.47247
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.656,7.96704
    Gambit (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.712,7.7731
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.724,8.27042
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.732,8.23506
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.74,8.52106
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.766,7.87015
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.811,7.98945
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.842,8.34967
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.851,8.13307
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.894,7.75002
    Archangel (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.9,7.77535
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.917,8.01075
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.97,7.97378
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.002,7.92931
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.046,8.26558
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.348,7.73349
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Classic Tokens,false,162.884,6.51618
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.212,6.78595
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.234,6.44261
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.256,6.69003
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.339,6.45539
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.369,6.81094
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.374,6.53316
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.387,6.8789
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.716,6.8559
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.813,6.75145
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.937,6.32653
    Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.701,2.24045
    Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.808,2.02611
    Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.88,2.11792
    Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.89,2.02433
    Archangel (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.896,2.02958
    Captain America (Infinity War),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.898,2.12358
    Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.945,1.98242
    Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.953,1.93515
    Thor (Gladiator),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.961,2.19624
    Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.986,2.16652
    The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.987,2.207
    Captain America (First Avenger),buy Latest Tokens,false,170,2.0489
    Professor X (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.005,2.08206
    Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.009,2.04326
    Gambit (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.01,1.96568
    Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.015,1.95877
    Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.023,2.00711
    Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.029,1.88259
    Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.041,2.14507
    Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.054,1.96751
    Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.056,1.87746
    Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.098,1.88637
    Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.103,1.86558
    Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.114,1.99875
    Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.132,2.11863
    Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.227,1.9446
    Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.008,1.47714
    Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.037,2.00191
    Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.13,1.46051
    Black Panther (Civil War),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.157,1.50942
    Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.173,1.49969
    Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.19,1.81491
    Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.409,1.50457
    Havok (Classic),buy Covers,true,171.44,1.48472
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Covers,true,171.441,1.47734
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Covers,true,171.494,1.47172
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Covers,true,171.513,1.43312
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Covers,true,171.515,1.49659
    Loki (God of Mischief),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.573,1.43341
    Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.861,2.20673
    Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.916,2.31667
    Okoye (Warrior General),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.964,2.19059
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Classic Tokens,true,181.913,0.682225
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.865,0.872224
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.88,0.903106
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.888,0.889638
    Havok (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.901,0.908405
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.902,0.903546
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Covers,false,245.406,1.75361
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Covers,false,245.445,1.71493
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Covers,false,245.45,1.74685
    Havok (Classic),buy Covers,false,245.508,1.72393
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Covers,false,245.511,1.76632
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Classic Tokens,false,351.2,32.2814
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Classic Tokens,false,351.621,33.6504
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Classic Tokens,false,352.655,32.5525
    Havok (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,352.731,31.8281
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Classic Tokens,false,405.91,2.43596
    Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.91,2.27418
    Havok (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.91,2.34177
    Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.919,2.29487
    Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.959,2.27185
    Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Latest Tokens,false,425.14,2.32517

  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    Man... I appreciate your math but I don't agree with your reasoning. Building a 5* from scratch can be done much cheaper via shards (insanely expensive still) you just need to wait for the char rotation (2 per day) but you would get there relatively fast.

    On the same subject, I have a question. Its almost a retorical one. What is the point of buying a 5* in this game? I mean, I understand some of the advantages, but what I don't understand is that if you put 1k or 10k into the game you will still need to keep playing daily hours to keep up with the new chars. For that cash the reward should be much bigger... 
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    @MadScientist
    If those are dollars, there's no way that it costs 31K +/- 6K to champ a Latests in a buy club.  At least not by my back-of-envelope math.

    If you assume you need 21 pulls to get a cover for 3 Latests, that 525 CP.  You need that 13 times so thats 6,825 CP.  (averaging out your 5 rate over 273+87(more on that in a bit), or 360 pulls, should get you pretty close to a 15% drop rate.)  Buying that using buy clubs at 140CP/$100 is 48.75 buy clubs or about $4900.  

    I think shards would make up any shortfall (target the one you really want, after 273 pulls you are close to 2 covers.  Maybe you end up spending (assuming no in game resources from play) a little more if you had really bad luck, but you also convert the 980K HP you bought in to 87.5 Heroic 40 packs so you are now over 2 covers from all the LTs you also can pull.  So you effectively need 11 covers.  Bad builds and all that but barring that bad luck (and not being able to make up for it with those two colorless covers) it seems like about $5k for one single champed 5, or at least 360 pulls.  Odds are you also got another one champed or very close.

    Did I miss something?

    Projectus2501 said:
    Man... I appreciate your math but I don't agree with your reasoning. Building a 5* from scratch can be done much cheaper via shards (insanely expensive still) you just need to wait for the char rotation (2 per day) but you would get there relatively fast.

    On the same subject, I have a question. Its almost a retorical one. What is the point of buying a 5* in this game? I mean, I understand some of the advantages, but what I don't understand is that if you put 1k or 10k into the game you will still need to keep playing daily hours to keep up with the new chars. For that cash the reward should be much bigger... 
    Obviously for most people the return on $5k for a champed 5 or 2 (or 3) isn't very good at all, as you didn't skip the playing.  But you would have bigger 5's than almost any non-whale and for a lot of people who are willing to spend thousands on the game, it's about competitiveness and being bigger and better than other players.  Their goal is not efficiency/time saving, it's about domination.  So yeah, they play as much or more than anyone else.  (Note:  If you assume you are playing enough to almost-champ any 5 anyway, your costs stabilize around $4900 since you can probably fix any bad builds with shards from PVE and just the additional pulls you earned from playing).
  • MadScientist
    MadScientist Posts: 317 Mover and Shaker
    The numbers I indicated are the number of HP bundles that you have to buy. For example, in the Apoc / buy latest / buyclub line it means that you have to buy an average of 31 (thirty-one) bundles which would cost $3100. This number lines up with you bote-calculation, no?

    Of course, there may be bugs in my code but the qualitative behavior of the results look ok.
  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    bluewolf said:
    Obviously for most people the return on $5k for a champed 5 or 2 (or 3) isn't very good at all, as you didn't skip the playing.  But you would have bigger 5's than almost any non-whale
    Humm... Even if you regularly champ all 5*s, 13 covers would only get you to 463 lv... What I mean is: 13 extra covers won't get you far. Mb what I really want to say is: a lot of $$$ won't get you far in the game. And that's a bad thing imo. 
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    These amounts of money are simply staggering. Perhaps more worryingly is the nonchalant way it is all being discussed!
  • MadScientist
    MadScientist Posts: 317 Mover and Shaker
    DAZ0273 said:
    These amounts of money are simply staggering. Perhaps more worryingly is the nonchalant way it is all being discussed!
    I'm just here for having an excuse to write a monte carlo simulation :tongue:
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    MadScientist said:
    The numbers I indicated are the number of HP bundles that you have to buy. For example, in the Apoc / buy latest / buyclub line it means that you have to buy an average of 31 (thirty-one) bundles which would cost $3100. This number lines up with you bote-calculation, no?

    Of course, there may be bugs in my code but the qualitative behavior of the results look ok.
    Makes sense, I was misinterpreting your results/numbers.  Thanks for the clarification!
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    MadScientist said:
    DAZ0273 said:
    These amounts of money are simply staggering. Perhaps more worryingly is the nonchalant way it is all being discussed!
    I'm just here for having an excuse to write a monte carlo simulation :tongue:

    The House definitely wins...
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    pheregas said:
    So what my take away from this is, with 40 champed 5s, if it were not against TOS to do so, asking $492,000 for my account would actually be at a discount!
    Throw in some Mighty tokens and you will have people queueing up for that bargain...
  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    Absolutely ridiculous that it is against TOS to sell your account/resources. If there were some real monetary value to the purchases people would spend much more IMO. See some MMOs where the economy is that of a small country.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    jp1 said:
    Absolutely ridiculous that it is against TOS to sell your account/resources. If there were some real monetary value to the purchases people would spend much more IMO. See some MMOs where the economy is that of a small country.
    Jp1, it’s actually standard practice across most, if not all games to disallow transferring or selling of accounts and resources. Look at all the EULA and it’s practically guaranteed that it’s the case. 
    Simply because second hand sales don’t contribute to the bottom line. 
  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    atomzed said:
    jp1 said:
    Absolutely ridiculous that it is against TOS to sell your account/resources. If there were some real monetary value to the purchases people would spend much more IMO. See some MMOs where the economy is that of a small country.
    Jp1, it’s actually standard practice across most, if not all games to disallow transferring or selling of accounts and resources. Look at all the EULA and it’s practically guaranteed that it’s the case. 
    Simply because second hand sales don’t contribute to the bottom line. 
    They don’t contribute directly. Indirectly, people may spend more and others that don’t spend because it is a “waste” might be willing to invest in something that they could recoup some part of later. Also, a new player that wants a well developed roster and is willing to spend money for it is the type of player that is now likely to make future purchases.

    I agree though, many companies don’t think big picture. 

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