The Disparity in 5* Characters

Palookaville

Wouldn't it be nice if all 5* characters had a similar amount of health?

3* and 4* characters when maxed all have health that seem to be within a certain distance of each other, yet when it comes to 5* characters some health is over 80,000 while others have sub 40,000 which is just way too much of a gap when it comes to choosing which character to use. 

I understand that as the game progresses, D3 have, as a general rule of thumb, made the health of each character a bit more and a bit more each time (no doubt so it can stretch out the time to play PvP matches) which is all well and good, but why not give older 5*'s a health boost to keep them at least competitive when it comes to overall health.

The reason I bring this up is that if I spend 250 CPs, I can finally (FINALLY) champion my Black Bolt (i'm on day 2307 of playing BTW)

But then I realized, what's the point? I probably won't get to use him in PVP, he is so much weaker than Apoc, BRB, iHulk and all of the "shiny new" characters that everyone seem to use.

It's bad enough that older 5*s have much poorer match damage, their powers are generally much weaker but they also have terrible health compared to newer releases.

Can't we just give them a boost to at least bring them up to standard? (compared to latest releases) It would be fun to use some older characters with match damage that makes a difference, powers that do decent damage and health that can actually take more than a couple of big moves from the heavy hitters.

Dormammu

My champed 5-star Black Widow endorses this post.

jp1

Black Bolt is still worth having IMO. He is definitely not an essential, but his passive and his aoe are still good enough to be useful especially when he is boosted. 

That said, I agree...boost these old 5s. There should be no trash 5s at all, they are just too difficult to obtain.

bluewolf

I mean how many times has this been brought up......

I wish they would do it, but it's obviously not a priority.  

HoundofShadow

Then, when you face them in challenge nodes... 

Vhailorx

The only thing I can figure is that demi views 5* power creep as a way for new 5*s to keep pace with old 5*s who have many more champ levels on them. 

But if that is the thought process behind the ever-increasing health and match damage, it's a bad one, because many people have all their 5*s clustered together, either around 450 as baby champs, or some where else if they grind/whale harder.  And all progress after a 5* leaves LTs is glacial, even with a single sharget it takes monrhs to add a handful of covers.

So instead of newer 5*s releasing with the power strength to match older 5*, they are just flat out superior.

Projectus2501

Palookaville said:

, yet when it comes to 5* characters some health is over 80,000 while others have sub 40,000 which is just way too much of a gap when it comes to choosing which character to use. 

D3 has a major problem. By historical metrics (introduction of 4* and 5* layer) they should already have introduced a 6* layer. Unfortunately they seem to have stopped this (natural) evolution. So, instead, we get this terrible unbalance.

It will not stop... 

DyingLegend

It's been an issue for a while that a lot of the classic characters need a revamp. Either with match damage, health, AP costs, power strength etc.
They are at a point where they can stop releasing new characters and start shining up some of the older characters and repackaging them.

I doubt that will happen as new characters earn more money than classic characters.

A lot of people on the forums, including myself, have been grumbling for a while about classic characters, dilution and feeders. The game changes over time and it's okay to revisit and restructure past characters.

I think there is a lot that needs to be worked on, but i think the game is going to keep growing and keep leaving old characters behind. The inevitable future is eventually there may be an MPQ 2 unless they figure out a better plan for character releases and tier progression, sometimes it easier to wipe the slate clean and start over. 

KGB

The older 5* are the true 5* characters.

The newer ones are a stealthy way to add 6* characters without calling them 6*s. The newest ones are essentially 2* the power of the old ones..

KGB

TPF Alexis

I wonder if it might be a good idea to change Latest Legends to Latest Reworks (or preferably a better name) for a while, and rotate classics through there as they get re-done, so they get a chance at being reasonably obtainable again.

Glockoma

Ah, that which cannot be named! And I’m not talking about Voldemort. 

Yeah, even post survey, this subject is a beaten horse that is practically a fossil now. 

PiMacleod

None of the above is happening.  If there's a rework, it's just gonna be a thing here or there, to appease vets just oh-so-much to keep us hanging on.

We all know why they keep boosting the power of each new 5* -- to make them more enticing, so that whales and anyone else will want to get the new shiny hotness.  It's nothing to do with balance or fairness.  Create an illusion of balance by making the powers seem plausible and fair within a template that we'll accept, then boost the match damage and health just slightly higher than the last one.  Boom -- instant sales.

I mean -- if they kept match damage and health the same the whole way, some of these newer 5*s might not have been nearly as shiny as they currently are, and that might've dropped sales a tad.

I know this all sounds cynical and negative.  But I believe this to be a true metric, backed by the plain desire to make more money on each 5* release, but to not make it so glaring that some of your buyers/fanbase quits the game due to the blatant pay-to-win they'd create by doing it.

Sorry -- I don't even like my own post here, but it feels like its what it's all about.

KGB

@PiMacleod

The method they've chosen also helps all newer players like myself who didn't start Day 1 in the game 'catch up' in the 5* meta. There is virtually no way for players to ever reasonably accumulate classic 5*s thanks to insane dilution. So the fact that we can ignore them for the latest say 10 5* is an ideal way for newer players to make the 5* jump. We only ever need a few covers on the classics for PvE.

KGB

sambrookjm

I'd settle for similar match damage in the tier.  Characters in other tiers have different health, but their match damages are pretty much the same.  Here in 5-star land, it's not even close between some of the champed characters.

Dormammu said:

My champed 5-star Black Widow endorses this post.

Yep...she's my #1 example about this problem as well when compared to my Iceman:
Black Widow, LVL 455:  66 / 547 / 78 / 615 / 72 / 478 / 4.3x / 309 with 47,495 health
Iceman, LVL 452: 829 / 105 / 645 / 89 / 737 / 97 / 3.5 / 410 with 63,407 health

Black Widow's #1 match damage (615, purple) is less than Iceman's #3 match damage (645, blue), despite her being three levels higher.

Edit - and for comparison, a LVL 459 iHulk: 99 / 715 / 117 / 108 / 919 / 817 / 3.5 / 455.  Health doesn't really matter too much with him, as he just bounces back with 19K if there's someone else that's still alive on your team when he goes down.

Vhailorx

When introduced, 5*s were supposed to have multiple match damage tiers (e.g. 'assault' characters with high match damage and 'suppprt' characters with lower match damage.).  But that concept broke down almost immediately, and now we mostly just have a linear upward trend with occasional outliers.

Since tanking is such an important part of the game, I liked the idea in principle because it would allow more options for team crafting.  But they also introduced the champ system a few months after introducing 5*s, and that system amis a more lucrative way for demi to allow is more granular control over tanking. That was probably the final nail for tiered 5* match damage.