Suggestions on how to "fix" classic legend pulls.

Palookaville

When I play Deadpool daily, for the final wave fight, I choose characters I never get to use (because I just don't have enough covers). Today I chose Mr Sinister at random, and had a bit of fun playing him (not that he is great, I just like to use more of my roster)

I took a look at him and I have him at 0-2-3 (5 covers out of 13)

I still need EIGHT covers to get him maxed, and he is in the classic legends vault. That is NOT gonna happen, it's not impossible, but it might as well be.

So my question to you is this. Can any of you think of solutions to "fix" the absolutely horrible dilution problem when it comes to classic 5* characters. 

(I know this topic has been covered before, but the problem is getting worse thanks to D3 pumping out new 5*s every other week)

Ares76

With the actual release rate it will be difficult for most players to champ every 5-star. But if youl like Sinister hoard CP ans wait for a special store he's in.

Vhailorx

There are tons of ways to solve classic dilution. That's the easy part   The problem is doing it without costing d3/demi's bottom line.  Scarcity is a money maker for them. 

The regular specialty stores are a decent stopgap, but the cp accrual rate is too slow for that to be a real solution.

I would favor 'vintage' packs that bundle smaller groups of 5*s together and so that players can more effectively target one or two 5*s, while still not being able to catch 'em all without substantial spending or grinding.  A "you can have anything, but probably not everything" model is the right target for demo/d3 IMO.  Especially with a fairly broad meta as we currently seem to have.

Daredevil217

I know it seems simple, but update feeders?

That might give you an avenue to Sinister that doesn’t put you further behind on the treadmill. 

HoundofShadow

Currently, these are the available methods to get specific 5-star cover / shards in the game:

Edited to add in a few more options. Thanks to wymtime for bringing shards up.

1) HfH store (250 or 500 CP)
2) Shard Store (14000 to 24210 HP)
3) Direct Power Purchase for unlocked power: 720cp
4) Feeders
5) S.H.I.E.L.D. Resupply (daily login reward), but I think it's limited to only some 5*.
6) Special 5* CP store
7) Pulling 167 Latest or Classic Tokens to get 500 5* shards
8) 50 or 250 5* shards in PvE Progression reward
9) PvP Placement rewards
10) Get  nine 5* shards from opening 40X in new 5* HP store.

For your context, You can exercise option 3 anytime for your unlocked power. Option 7 is also available.

Option 1 could be predictable. I think there's a few players who can help you to predict this. 

Option 2  and 6 happen randomly. 

Option 4 will happen probably around Christmas since that is Shardmas anniversary.

Honourable mention:

Legendary option: when a 5* is nerfed, you get tokens to a special store consisting of only 5* when you sell the nerfed 5* away. T&C apply. This has happened only twice though. 

Palookaville

Ares76 said:

With the actual release rate it will be difficult for most players to champ every 5-star. But if youl like Sinister hoard CP ans wait for a special store he's in.

Problem is, it takes around a year or so for each character to appear, so since I i need 8 covers, lets be generous and say that in 5 years I can have him covered.


Here is my wacky idea.

Make the price of Classic LTs 10 CPs each instead of 20.

Jormagund

It actually makes a strange sort of sense.  Due to dilution cut Classics pulls to 15, then 10 although I fear it encourages cutbacks.

dingo

Overhauled cp stores

15cp classic 4* (excluding newest 50)

25cp classic 5*, 4* (excluding classic 50, the number will be there soon enough) 1in5 odds for 5*

30cp the new LL

75cp classic 5*

Numbers could be adjusted a bit maybe.

Or..... release 6* characters....

HoundofShadow

I don't think it's going to help much with getting specific 5* character cover. 

Currently, there are 41 Classic 5*. 
It will take you 1/7 * 1/41 = 287 Classic pulls or 5740 CP to get 1 cover. Halving it will take 2720 CP.

The problems with halving it is:

1) It will cause some issue with balancing for newer players.  They will be covering 4* even faster. When this happens, it impact their 4* bundle sales. Hardly anyone buys ISO-8 bundle. 400 4* shards will cost 270 cp instead of 540 cp or 675 CP. 270 CP is equal to 14 pulls. Old bonus hero rate was 1/20.

2) It will be much cheaper to get targeted 5* shards (4175 CP (LT Pulls) vs 3740 CP (Classic Pulls) vs 1870 CP (halving it in Classic)). In the old bonus heroes, it cost 140 pulls. Halving it means It costs only 84 pulls.

Waiting for special store is a much better option because it's cheaper: 21 pulls * 25 cp = 525 CP.

Therefore, a more regular 5* special store will be a better option. Twice a week means 26 special stores * 3 characters = 72 5* characters a year. Make it happen thrice a month means 39 * 3 = 117. Each 5* will be featured at least twice a year for now.

Also, they can increase it from 3 to 4 character per special store instead.
That makes it 26 * 4 = 104 characters instead. Increasing it to 5 characters per special store means 130 characters.

I think a good solution will be two special stores per month with an increment of 3 to 4 or 5 characters per store.

Michael1957

I’m not sure why anyone chases the classics .  A) No one even uses 75% of them in PvAI.   The latest keep getting stronger than the early releases.  C) 1 cover is all you need for the 5E in PvE 3 to 4 days a year .  Seriously who’s the oldest classic even being used ? The 3 early metas were nerfed into oblivion . Okoye , Kitty, BRB and Thor have all been the last 2 years as MPQ evolves into better metas . 

Jexy

Doctor Strange is still quite useful in PVE.

Vhailorx

Michael1957 said:

I’m not sure why anyone chases the classics .  A) No one even uses 75% of them in PvAI.   The latest keep getting stronger than the early releases.  C) 1 cover is all you need for the 5E in PvE 3 to 4 days a year .  Seriously who’s the oldest classic even being used ? The 3 early metas were nerfed into oblivion . Okoye , Kitty, BRB and Thor have all been the last 2 years as MPQ evolves into better metas . 

One could easily have said this about bssm before kitty released, or hawkeye before worthy and cl10 joined the game.

This game is almost always about passives.  And it's not always obvious which old passive will become important in a future meta.

And that discounts the fact that some classics are the actual meta (okoye. Thor, kitty, BRB), while others are extremely useful in one or both game modes (hawkeye, thanos, strange, DD, ice) and others could be meta-adjacent again with the right new partners based on their very useful or unique passives (hela, GED, JJ, bssm, sinister, archangel, bb, loki).

wymtime

HoundofShadow said:

Currently, these are the available methods to get specific 5-star cover in the game:

1) HfH store (250 or 500 CP)
2) Shard Store (14000 to 24210 HP)
3) Direct Power Purchase for unlocked power: 720cp
4) Feeders
5) S.H.I.E.L.D. Resupply (daily login reward), but I think it's limited to only some 5*.
6) Special 5* CP store

For your context, You can exercise option 3 anytime for your unlocked power.

Option 1 could be predictable. I think there's a few players who can help you to predict this. 

Option 2  and 6 happen randomly. 

Option 4 will happen probably around Christmas since that is Shardmas anniversary.

Honourable mention:

Legendary option: when a 5* is nerfed, you get tokens to a special store consisting of only 5* when you sell the nerfed 5* away. T&C apply. This has happened only twice though. 

One you missed was shards and bonus shards.  If you favorite the 5* you can build up those shards to get a cover.  I have personally gotten a bonus shards on a 5* and it was a fairly good amount too.

DyingLegend

Crash should be changed to 5 stars
Add a new challenge mode for 4 star covers. For the 4 stars, give the player a choice of a classic or a latest to fight for. Give shards cause we know they won't give a cover for it. 

jredd

split the classics up into groups of 5.

aaaaand a classic legends token. still not sure why it's the only on-going store that doesn't have it's own token.

krakenoon

@jredd

Careful what you wish for, next they’ll take away LTs and replace them with CTs... and less of them ofc.

jredd

they would do that, yes. but they don't have to. but they probably would.

ZootSax

WAY back in the day, 3*'s used to rotate out of the token pools--from what I recall, the purpose was for rework and countering dilution.  It was very unpopular at the time, as characters which were unavailable from tokens were still available in PVP & PVE, but without systems like bonus heroes or shards to work around that deficiency.  It was also very poorly communicated on what schedule characters would come and go, even though developer communication was much better back then and the schedule seemed utterly random (3*'s could disappear for 3-6 months for no rhyme or reason).

I feel a system like this could go a long way to countering dilution in the 4* tier and for classic legends in the 5* tier.  You could have a system where 6-10 5*'s were available at any one time in classic tokens and 30-50 4* characters were available in all (non-vault) tokens.  The pool would rotate on a predictable schedule every season and the newest few characters and all featured/boosted characters in both PVE & PVP that season would be available.  Characters which were rotated out of tokens would still be available via shards & favoriting.  

I'm not saying it's a great solution, much less a perfect one, because nothing here actually "solves" dilution in any meaningful way.  However, it does at least do something to help work around it without severely (or at least obviously) undercutting the bottom line for the company. 

Vhailorx

There was vaulting for both 3*s and 4*s, and it was unpopular both times.  But I think that was mostly because of the implementation and extrinsic game design features, rather than the basic idea of vaulting.  Warframe has had vaulting + aggressive monetization for years and it has produced less backlash than the current 12 4* kerfuffle from 2018 (or was it 2017?). 

You can't do vaulting, but also keep using the vintage characters as essential or featured/boosted characters in pve and PVP (and possibly even new feeders).  The whole current 12 idea was actually great for those players who had all the old 4*s covered.  But it was a failure because it provided no path for everyone else to cover those old characters.  Imagine the current 5* scheme, but without periodic release stores that include classic 5*s.

If they insist on vaulting but don't fix those other factors, it would be a failure yet again.

Loosie

The only true way to solve the 5* classic issue to make a store that is 5* only.You can rotate a small subset through if you wish, but that's the only way you can guarantee getting a 5*.