Mags/AW/YJ/Cyc: June 2021 is only four months away

LavaManLee

With the "meh" reaction to Cyc, I realize that if I continue my current hoarding of CP/Tokens, that the next time I will probably pull is the middle of June.  That's how long it will take to get rid of the current 5*.  Four long months of playing but not doing much more than hoarding the good tokens.

I imagine I will drunkenly open something at some point, but overall this is a bit depressing and really wish the current four had even one that I wanted to champ.

Borstock

Maybe there will be a fan favorite store you can pull from (he said, secretly hoping for himself).

Theghouse

BRB is in Cyke's release store...  

Sorry.  Wish I had better news.

Tiger_Wong

Meh. Sucks to be you I guess. 

ursopro

What's stopping you from pulling? They don't work good enough with Okoye?

acescracked

ursopro said:

What's stopping you from pulling? They don't work good enough with Okoye?

Nerf Apocalypse.

ursopro

acescracked said:

ursopro said:

What's stopping you from pulling? They don't work good enough with Okoye?

Nerf Apocalypse.

         

Michael1957

ursopro said:

What's stopping you from pulling? They don't work good enough with Okoye?

This is a classic post !

tonypq

I feel your aggravation. The last slew of 5s does nothing for me either. Like you I'll be waiting who knows how long for these to leave LLs. Unless one of the next two 5s is incredible I'll also be hoarding for a long time. 

Polares

I am going to have to eat Cyclops because I want AW as I am a big fan (and I guess YJ is decent), but I am afraid the next 5 will be good and I will not be able to get him. That would pissed me A LOT.

I dont know what Devs are doing. All chars since Apoc have been decent at best, but they have not affected the meta at all in neither PvP or PvE. Sometimes I think they are just tired of this game and they want it to die...

gravel

I was disappointed by Cyclops too, but I want to cover Adam.  I pulled until Magneto is done, and will wait until he leaves, then pull more to hopefully finish Adam.  With Cyclops being seemingly underwhelming, splitting the levels between him and Mags doesn't seem like a big loss.  Of course I ended up with more Magneto covers (5/4/3 with a saved cover) than Adam (3/2/1) or Yellowjacket (4/3/1), and more Yellowjacket than Adam, but isn't that the way.  I do still have 80 LTs to pull after Magneto leaves, and hopefully I can pick up another Adam cover from shards in the process.

SnowcaTT

LavaManLee said:

With the "meh" reaction to Cyc, I realize that if I continue my current hoarding of CP/Tokens, that the next time I will probably pull is the middle of June.  That's how long it will take to get rid of the current 5*.  Four long months of playing but not doing much more than hoarding the good tokens.

I imagine I will drunkenly open something at some point, but overall this is a bit depressing and really wish the current four had even one that I wanted to champ.

Well, look at the plus side. You'll have a bigger hoard to break for bigger characters (that's the situation I'm in, probably not enough to break for Adam and pointless to break for the other current ones).

Or, possibly they'll introduce new game-play styles in the meantime, where it matters that you have every character covered and hoarding isn't the only path to progression.

HAH! I made a funny.

Tony_Foot

Waiting on fan fav vault now. Also in the same boat where I’m not pulling for these trash 5*s. They should give up on the four stars now and just release 5*. They keep using all the great mechanics on 4*. There’s so much trash in the 5* tier even if they changed to two per month it wouldn’t create pressure unless you just have to have them all.

Right now I’d take lazy remakes of 4* mechanics put into a 5*. 

I’m starting to consider taking a month or so off as I don’t have any pressure on CP or LTs.

ThaRoadWarrior

I pull as I go to try champing everyone, but I’m also pretty underwhelmed by this crop of latest. It happens sometimes.

Theghouse

Polares said:

I dont know what Devs are doing. All chars since Apoc have been decent at best, but they have not affected the meta at all in neither PvP or PvE. Sometimes I think they are just tired of this game and they want it to die...

I just don't understand this mindset. 

It's one thing to say that the past few releases have been underwhelming (they are), and that they could at least try to make them more competitive without having to totally redesign them (which could be done by adjusting his AP costs, damage totals, etc).

But expecting every new release, or even a majority of them, to affect the meta?  There is no game on the planet with this many strategy options where every single option is - or even can be for that matter - equally impactful on the top metagame.

To purposefully affect the meta with each new character, they must develop each character to either directly counter the previous meta or completely overshadow it.  But purposefully designing each brand new character this way is consciously choosing to render old content obsolete. The game would become pay-to-win for the newest and best content.  So then who would pay for the newest and best, with the next new character who is once again designed to be the best making your purchase immediately obsolete?  Intentionally rewriting the meta with each new release would be the one thing that actually completely destroys the game.  So what else can be done?

Take for example magic the gathering card game, which I think is a great comparison to the current climate of MPQ.

In certain formats which allow all sets ever made to be played, magic's meta is dominated by older cards many of which still have no rivals nor contemporary equals.  There is a small list of cards with game-shattering abilities or combos that are completely banned (where MPQ nerfs).  In this format literally thousands of new cards can be printed before even a single one has an effect on the top meta.  I would say this is most comparable to the way the MPQ meta works now.  But in magic this format plays second fiddle to standard format.

In magic's standard format you may only build your deck using the latest released sets.  This forces players to pick up the new cards and forces them to give up the old.  While the sets are constantly changing, every top player pretty much plays a version of one of a handful of primary deck designs that make up the top meta in the current set pairing.  So even with this forced rotation of content that forces players to constantly buy the newest cards and never miss a new set to stay afloat in the game, there is still an overwhelming lack of variety at the top of competition.  The closest we get to this forced adoption of new content in MPQ is new character boosts and increased PVE essential rotation of Latests.  I would hate to see MPQ to go further down this road by further restricting character usage on more than the handful of essential nodes, but I think there are other ideas here.

I think the addition of puzzle game modes could be the future of this game.  I think it can and should be expanded to versus play.  Imagine if every event had an alternate win condition.  Sure you could still smash your opponent into pulp, but you could also win by being the first to generate 25 total red AP, or being the first to create 12 total friendly trap tiles, or being the first team to have characters go airborne or invisible for 8 turn counts.  And each of the recent 5* has utility in these areas.  Or you might LOSE if you're the first team to destroy 15 total green tiles, or LOSE if you're the first team to break more than 10 total tiles using powers, or you LOSE if you're the first team to control 12 or more SAP tiles simultaneously.  The current meta is a liability under these conditions, and even if they can be mitigated through careful player play, they would destroy themselves on AI defense. 

The environmental tile idea, with adaptations so that each team gets tiles that go off on their turn, could be interesting to reintroduce with this concept.  Or imagine each team starts with a boss style Apoc horseman tile that can only be destroyed by satisfying it's condition.  The AI might be hindered without being able to actively pursue this more-complex type of secondary challenge, but still something to think about.

If you want more characters to affect the meta, the answer is NOT demanding a constant stream of bigger-faster-better characters, it is more objectives.  If a match gives you something to pursue or avoid other than quickly smashing your enemy before being smashed yourself, then you can move beyond the stagnant big-fast-damage meta.

HoundofShadow

This is what happens when players' criteria revolves around Okoye/Thor/Apocalypse.

Can the new 5*:
1) replace them?
2) replace my current character who is *working well with them?
3) deal passive damage every turn without many conditions?
4) spam powers or fire powers for cheap (6 or 7ap) and deals high damage?
5) counter iHulkoye faster than BRB/Kitty?
6) deals high damage reliably (e.g. non-trap tiles based)?

*working well means ending the match as fast as the best option (e.g. iHulkoye or Thor/Apocalypse), or even faster than the existing best option, whether it's accumulation of APS or damage boost.

When the answer is no, the new 5* is terrible.

I think the dev needs to come out and reveal what % of players are playing for speed. A few years ago, they answered that majority of players don't play for speed. So, it's interesting to see if things have changed.

CharlieCroker

HoundofShadow said:

This is what happens when players' criteria revolves around Okoye/Thor/Apocalypse.

Can the new 5*:
1) replace them?
2) replace my current character who is *working well with them?
3) deal passive damage every turn without many conditions?
4) spam powers or fire powers for cheap (6 or 7ap) and deals high damage?
5) counter iHulkoye faster than BRB/Kitty?
6) deals high damage reliably (e.g. non-trap tiles based)?

*working well means ending the match as fast as the best option (e.g. iHulkoye or Thor/Apocalypse), or even faster than the existing best option, whether it's accumulation of APS or damage boost.

When the answer is no, the new 5* is terrible.

I think the dev needs to come out and reveal what % of players are playing for speed. A few years ago, they answered that majority of players don't play for speed. So, it's interesting to see if things have changed.

I’m not saying any of the above points are wrong, but given PvP is 50% of the game they could be shortened to “Is the new 5* viable to use in competitive PvP?”

By competitive PvP, I mean does the new 5* even have any chance of winning matches vs the teams you’ll be matched with in the duo 5* MMR once past say 700, primarily Okoye/Ihulk, but with a light dusting of BRB/Kitty, Prof/Onslaught and the odd Apoc.

If the answer that to that is no, then the new 5* has little value to an existing player in the 5* tier (other than for collectors and for PVE) and for a 4* player hoping to make the jump to the 5* tier could likely make them quit the game as their experience in PvP would be so horrible.

The other 50% of the game is of course PVE and if a 5* could contribute towards faster or easier clears then that would also be welcomed.  Adam Warlock is the only recent release I feel has/could move the bar there, as even with only one black cover he accelerated my clears of the 5e in CL10 more than some fully champed classics have.  Of course that was in conjunction with Oyoye/Thor (or Kitty/Grockett) taking advantage of his passive AOE.

tonypq

I don't think anyone here is saying each new 5 should rock the meta world. But they should be potent enough to actually want to use and not feel obsolete from day one.

We see D3 seemingly unwilling to mess around the with the current metas, at the same time not interested in buffing weaker or older characters. To keep releasing 5s left and right that are meh from the get go isn't doing anyone any favors. The newer ones we are getting should have more bite to their toolkits. D3 simply seems to have no vision other than continuing to churn out spitballed characters whether they're any good or not. 

HoundofShadow

Depending on the levels of your 5* , you still can see Kitty/Polaris or R4G past 700.

This game is not about a single character taking down three characters at once. It's about teaming up characters to deal with opponents made up of different teams. In this game, there are a variety of mode. For example, there are:

1) 1 vs 1
2) 2 vs 2
3) 3 vs 3 with variations of a) pick 1 b) pick 2 and c) pick 3

For example, Okoye, Kitty and IHulk is terrible in 1v1, but they are good in the other two. I think Magneto is good in pick 3, but not pick 2. Yellowjacket is good in all 3. Unfortunately, what players here want is something even faster or something as fast as their best options.

When players limit their options to the fastest teams or character to end a match, naturally, their options are limited. When their options are limited or their critieria are "stringent", most 5* will look "unusable". That's why it's a waste of time to rework older 5* because the yardstick used in this forum to measure the usability of 5* characters is speed. As long as the reworked 5* doesn't tick off a string of 'yes' to the above questions, they will still be considered trash or meh along new characters like YJ or AW.

ThaRoadWarrior

I question whether this character (Cyclops) could beat even mundane non-boosted teams with power costs this high, repeaters this slow that do nothing useful on proc, and no self accelerant. Even Danver5 starts out with a 3-turn repeater passively that gives you 3 green and it’s uselessly slow. At least Ghost Rider’s repeaters are green and can be as short as 1-turn. (Any meaningful anti-hulk needs to clog up or remove green quickly if it won’t mitigate incoming AOE)

it’s one thing to say not every character needs to disrupt the meta, but on the other hand every 5* is going to be somebody’s first, and MMR behaves how it does. There should be NO dead on arrival 5* releases at minimum.

Jacklag

Why don't you pull half your tokens and save the rest for the next 5*? That's my strategy for investing in stocks.