A question for veteran players

Akoni

ThaRoadWarrior said:

For me it would be how you aquire them. I think the closest thing we've seen to what I imagine they'll do is how you get supports - a vault that has N items in it with a single token to a store that's only open if you have tokens, and then that token only gives you some low random chance to get one...and then as we've seen with 5* characters already what happens if the character is a dud? Or if it's wildly OP? The other way you might aquire them would be via an HP store with infinitesimally low odds, like we already see on 5* release stores. Also I guess there is the cognitive dissonance we already have from street level characters or c-list characters dominating the meta (Okoye has no powers, but...) that will have to happen once 6*s show up. Like what if the first 6* is a tie in to Flaptain and Bucky? Like a 6* John Walker (lol)? Like mechanically that's fine, but at some level it's like "...."

I think the change to the store would be less subtle than you suggest. Adding a whole new tier will require an overhaul of sorts. It isn't something that would happen overnight. It'll happen over several releases.

LavaManLee said:

This game boxed itself into a corner by overstaying its welcome (that is, it has lasted WAY longer than anticipated).  Most mobile games, you unlock a character (let's say at 1*) and can use them right away and then add resources to level them up to 2*, 3*, 4*, etc.  In this game, the character is given to you already at a * level and then you add covers to increase it and THEN you champ it and THEN you add more levels to it.  This is very different and puts them in a quandry.

I agree that the game was boxed in, but I think it was in a different way. I think planning was the downfall. Instead of mapping out characters and trying to align them at various rarities (i.e. street level characters = 1-2*), devs designed and implemented characters based on what was "in" at the time. This is why we have so many copies of Captain America, but no 
Captain Britain, Electro, etc. It's also why Okoye (normal human) is one of the most powerful characters in the game as mentioned in @ThaRoadWarrior post above.

To be fair, I don't know how much of their decisions were driven or influenced by Marvel reps. Nonetheless, both the comics and the MCU provide guides in terms of character power. Okoye's a great fighter, but she shouldn't beat Vision, and there's no way she can hang with Surfer. Some characters make sense at lower tiers, but since devs appear to be resistant to releasing more lower tier characters, we may be looking at a high level John Walker. What if Hindsight Lad makes a MCU debut and is a fan favorite? Are we going to get a 4-5* Hindsight Lad capable of beating 3* Wolverine and Scarlett Witch?

Anyway, that damage has already been done. As for 6*, there are so many other characters that can still be drawn upon like Galactus, Dr. Strange (ultimate form), Odin, etc. That still won't be for quite some time. We need to be pushing about 150-200 5* characters before devs think about 6* characters.

HoundofShadow

One might want to let go of the idea that just because X character beats Y character in comic; therefore, Y shouldn't be able to beat X character in game. I'm not sure how many hardcore Marvel fans there are playing this game and what % they made up. I would consider myself a casual Marvel fan. I get most of my knowledge about characters from games, TV shows, cartoons and movies. So, I don't care who beat who in comics. But I do let my creativity goes wild and enjoy seeing trash tier beating god tier characters. And MPQ gives me an outlet to do that. 

Marvel has some control over what characters get released. If you noticed, some characters will appear in all other major Marvel games within the same timeline.

As for releasing lower tier characters, it only serves to delay new players from moving to 4* land. On top of that, very veteran players have to spend 2000HP to 6000HP to roster a character, plus their dupes,  that hardly make any impact to their gaming experiences. Currently, we have 14 2* and 47 3* characters . The timeframe to move to 4* land is about 8 - 10 months. Releasing more lower tier characters regularly would push it to  more  than a year.

Bad

This is a game working into bussiness. Characters are appearing due to tie-in rather than character mapping, so each character appearing later will be stronger than older ones, if there is no rebalance. 
Now that theaters are going to be worlwide working again, films will be coming again with tie-ins.
And it is a game where further and further progression it is needed. When a player is firmly on 5* land usually forgets the path he walked. But there will be more players walking on that road at the time.
After saying that and thanks to shards the land a vet should be right now should be 5*.
I think it would be good to have more challenges for them, different rewards, new sinergies, pves, and gauntlets offering more experiences, rather than just grinding for champing the next 5*, wich it is not a bad goal, although when there are meh characters it is not exciting.

NMANOZ1

fractalvisions said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Champing wasn't even a thing until a few years into the life of the game as I recall

Yes, I remember when they brought in champing. I almost gave up on the game before that. Maybe I even temporarily did. I'd got a lot of my 3* to their max level and it was so hard to get 4*, so it felt a bit pointless. It was certainly a good thing that they introduced champion levels.

The biggest issue I found before champing was expiring covers, that was worst (especially for new players if you got covers faster than HP for roster slots).

fractalvisions

NMANOZ1 said:

fractalvisions said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Champing wasn't even a thing until a few years into the life of the game as I recall

Yes, I remember when they brought in champing. I almost gave up on the game before that. Maybe I even temporarily did. I'd got a lot of my 3* to their max level and it was so hard to get 4*, so it felt a bit pointless. It was certainly a good thing that they introduced champion levels.

The biggest issue I found before champing was expiring covers, that was worst (especially for new players if you got covers faster than HP for roster slots).

I'm not sure I follow. How did the introduction of champion levels change that? Sure, you occasionally get some HP from champion rewards, but that only slightly mitigates the issue. I don't really expect that to be a problem that will go away any time soon. Indeed, it just gets worse with every new character added.

ThaRoadWarrior

Saved covers came years after champ levels. That was the first relief valve on roster slot pressure that got opened. Shards actually completely eliminated the expiration problem. Of course the slot coat is still a thing, but you don’t have to worry about your shards just disappearing off your vine after 2 weeks. The minor improvement of expired covers auto selling rather than just obliviating was a small but welcome addition too.

Wil88

Before champ levels, once you hit 13 covers you either had to build a dupe or sell the extra cover. Not great from both an HP or ISO perspective early on. I believe that’s what @NMANOZ1 is referring to. 

Akoni

NMANOZ1 said:

fractalvisions said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Champing wasn't even a thing until a few years into the life of the game as I recall

Yes, I remember when they brought in champing. I almost gave up on the game before that. Maybe I even temporarily did. I'd got a lot of my 3* to their max level and it was so hard to get 4*, so it felt a bit pointless. It was certainly a good thing that they introduced champion levels.

The biggest issue I found before champing was expiring covers, that was worst (especially for new players if you got covers faster than HP for roster slots).

Expired covers were a thorn in my side. I was so relieved when they implemented saved covers.

Bad said:

This is a game working into bussiness. Characters are appearing due to tie-in rather than character mapping, so each character appearing later will be stronger than older ones, if there is no rebalance. 
Now that theaters are going to be worlwide working again, films will be coming again with tie-ins.
And it is a game where further and further progression it is needed. When a player is firmly on 5* land usually forgets the path he walked. But there will be more players walking on that road at the time.
After saying that and thanks to shards the land a vet should be right now should be 5*.
I think it would be good to have more challenges for them, different rewards, new sinergies, pves, and gauntlets offering more experiences, rather than just grinding for champing the next 5*, wich it is not a bad goal, although when there are meh characters it is not exciting.

You bring up some very good points. I see why they are developing and releasing characters as they do. The game remains constantly relevant by doing so. Each time a new comic, movie, streaming show, etc. is released, they have new material to work with. There are downsides, but it has worked well, thus far.
Characters aren't the biggest issue, though. I think that falls on your last point. Coming up with challenge after challenge, event after event, and so on, to keep things fresh while not deviating too far from what the core player-base likes becomes more difficult as the game ages.

DAZ0273

Champing 4* has literally never been easier.

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Saved covers came years after champ levels. That was the first relief valve on roster slot pressure that got opened. Shards actually completely eliminated the expiration problem. Of course the slot coat is still a thing, but you don’t have to worry about your shards just disappearing off your vine after 2 weeks. The minor improvement of expired covers auto selling rather than just obliviating was a small but welcome addition too.

I sometimes think "I want my iso-8 back, MPQ!" for all the blasted characters I champed because of the dreaded on the vine countdown that I didn't really want to champ but couldn't risk not champing in case I never got another cover!

entrailbucket

I really wish they'd do 6* characters, just to shake things up. 

In the earlier days of the game, when a character was dominant, you could be assured that their dominance would not last very long.  One of the most exciting parts of the game was the completely random meta shifts that happened when someone got massively overnerfed or overbuffed.  Long term roster planning meant covering every single base, because you didn't know if a bad character would suddenly become dominant or a good character would become trash.

The problem now is that the meta is so stagnant that you can plan this stuff years in advance.  It's boring, it incentivizes going all in on good characters and ignoring everyone else, and the whole thing is stagnant.  If you get a good pair of 5* at a high level you can use them for years and never bother with another character.

If they introduced 6* it'd throw all the planning completely out the window and force everyone to react on the fly.

killahKlown

I was excited about 5* introductions.  But that was based on the explanation that a 5* was a long term goal.  It should take most people 2 years to champ a 5*.  I remember the high fives and celebrations when someone would pull a Silver Surfer.  And the 5*s were even useful with 1 or 2 covers only.

It was quickly shown not long after that we could pretty much get them champed right away.  Kind of a letdown.

XandorXerxes

I'm vehemently against 6* characters without some major caveats. The 5* introduction was a disaster and (imo) implemented poorly. Don't even get me started on the "kids these days have it easier than when I had to open tokens uphill in the snow both ways." I think there are plenty of options before putting in a new tier; the easiest one is to just re-release reworked characters. Overhaul the least-used, most under-powered characters and drop covers for them like it's a new release. Give them the "new character" boost etc. Doesn't dilute the character pool, potentially adds more character use diversity, and allows for slower releases in general.

A quick change could just be a buff/penalty period that changes every event/week/few weeks/month. Random possible examples that are off the top of my head and aren't balanced by any means:
- <color> matches/powers deal 1.2x damage
- All <special tile type> tiles are considered strength 1
- All <color> matches grant <other color> AP instead
- Self-damage is tripled
- If you have X AP in a character's primary color, you can spend all of it to negate damage the next turn to that character
- All healing is burst/true healing

Basically anything that soft-shifts what's powerful at any given moment. If a character's good power(s) are too expensive to be meta, the one where two colors generate one color of AP could make that character more viable (and make others not-viable).

I'm sure there's a system out there that would allow "character banning" type things to work, but I feel like meta teams would need more counters for that first.

6*s don't actually solve anything, it just creates the same problems (i.e. what's the difference in releasing a 6* and a 5* that's too strong).

Captain_Trips88

The idea of 6* just sends waves of disappointment through me. Long gone are the days of 'puzzle' quest from when we just had 3* and you actually had to work out each fight what was the best team and strategy for winning the bout. The new puzzle ops rounds have been an excellent addition to bring some sort of actual challenge to the game again instead of just putting out the same couple of meta teams time after time. I guess in theory you could attempt PVE using other characters but only by dropping levels and there is no incentive prize wise for a 5* player to do so.

also how long before 6* go from being so rare you aren't entirely sure of their existence to a new one being released every month as we have seen with 5*? The 5* balance is horrendous now and as said before there already is a 6* level if you compare the strengths of differing 5* characters.

Focus would be better off elsewhere on introducing new gameplay elements, ideally ones that actually make the player think - maybe more solo team fights so you can't rely on the meta, more conditions added to fights that will make you have to strategize.

I am fully aware that this doesn't make money because society thrives on buying/achieving things now now now, so the dangling of supposedly high level prizes coaxes people into spending money and for new players that is pretty much the only way to get a strong roster fast. For us veterans who have been slogging away for years and have the full roster an underwhelming 5* just has no impact at all which is wrong for the top tier prize rewards, and 6* would ultimately end up going the same way. 

Akoni

XandorXerxes said:

I'm vehemently against 6* characters without some major caveats. The 5* introduction was a disaster and (imo) implemented poorly. Don't even get me started on the "kids these days have it easier than when I had to open tokens uphill in the snow both ways." I think there are plenty of options before putting in a new tier; the easiest one is to just re-release reworked characters. Overhaul the least-used, most under-powered characters and drop covers for them like it's a new release. Give them the "new character" boost etc. Doesn't dilute the character pool, potentially adds more character use diversity, and allows for slower releases in general.



6*s don't actually solve anything, it just creates the same problems (i.e. what's the difference in releasing a 6* and a 5* that's too strong).

I agree. There are still so many improvable items in the game that expansion isn't necessary right now. I still believe that 6* will be introduced, but not for some time. I like the idea of re-working characters, but as with many nerfs or boosts, it will be done silently instead of doing a re-release to showcase it. 

JRYUART

I think that if they introduce 6* characters as a way to invigorate the game, they should all be the most powerful characters from the Marvel pantheon such as Galactus, Celestials, Phoenix, Odin, Franklin Richards, etc and using them should have a caveat - you can ONLY use them solo.  1 v 3, just like what we see in boss battles now.  They may have a ludicrously high healthpool and do massive damage but these benefits could be tempered via a 1v3 scenario while still faithfully representing the original characters’ stature from the comics.  

Daredevil217

Makes me think. Who is the most powerful character (lore-wise) currently in the game? God Doom would be my pick. 

Akoni

JRYUART said:

I think that if they introduce 6* characters as a way to invigorate the game, they should all be the most powerful characters from the Marvel pantheon such as Galactus, Celestials, Phoenix, Odin, Franklin Richards, etc and using them should have a caveat - you can ONLY use them solo.  1 v 3, just like what we see in boss battles now.  They may have a ludicrously high healthpool and do massive damage but these benefits could be tempered via a 1v3 scenario while still faithfully representing the original characters’ stature from the comics.  

I like your suggestions. I touched on some of your points in another post some time ago about 6* characters here. Unfortunately, as @Bad mentioned earlier, the characters aren't released according to stats, but rather for their relevance and popularity in the media, especially the MCU. 

As for the limitation on use, there is some evidence in the game that a 1v3 is possible as has been shown in the Introducing New Character events. I don't know if there is more work behind the scenes to make that happen, but it is possible. The character would have to be insanely powerful, though. A single character versus 3 level 550 meta 5* characters? There is no way that single character could win that. In addition, every single 6* would have to be immune to being stunned AND unable to be sent airborne. Remember, it's not just 1v3 characters, but it's also 3v9 powers. I don't care how powerful Galactus is; if he can be stunned, he's a joke. That's Polaris/Carnage/Kitty for the win every single time. Really, insert whatever team you want. If it stuns, it'll crush.

Bad

There is no way the introduction of 6*s would balance the game, rather the opposite, and it would demote all the others characters a lot more than 5*s do.
If 6*s were so champable as 5*s, that would mean 5*s would be the new 4*s.
And I doubt that would add something new to the game except power creep.
Insisting with my last suggestion, if special 5*s focused of particular affiliation characthers I think that would be more positive. If in this way a new 5* teamed with two specific 4*s would be wildly buffed to the point they could corner a full 5* team.
I think that could be funny and that could make collecting 4*s meaningful for 5* players.
So there are always options if there are creative minds, for adding new experiences.

MadScientist

Daredevil217 said:

Makes me think. Who is the most powerful character (lore-wise) currently in the game? God Doom would be my pick. 

• Thanos
• Phoenix Force (Jean Grey?)
• Squirrel Girl (single handedly defeated Galactus, for instance)
  

Daredevil217

MadScientist said:

Daredevil217 said:

Makes me think. Who is the most powerful character (lore-wise) currently in the game? God Doom would be my pick. 

• Thanos
• Phoenix Force (Jean Grey?)
• Squirrel Girl (single handedly defeated Galactus, for instance)
  

I still take Victor in any of those matchups. He one-shotted Thanos (ripped out his skeleton Mortal Kombat style), One-Shotted the Phoenix Force (wielded by Dark Phoenix Cyke), and defeated the Gauntlet (wielded by Panther). 

Obviously, in fiction, the writers determine the outcomes even if on paper the power levels don’t match (ie SG vs. Galactus, which by the way… Doom was so powerful he had Galactus just chilling guarding his castle… and an army of Thor’s… and created a universe from different timelines…)

God Doom should’ve been a 7 star lol.