A question for veteran players

Wil88

God Doom should’ve been a 7 star lol. 

Cue new discussion thread on 7* characters.....😂😂

SnowcaTT

The 5*'s were initially essentially -only- for the big spenders.

I would expect if/when they do 6*'s you'll see that same exact thing.


...The other thing that happened more slowly is those first 5*'s became really bad, which made some of those early big spenders leave the game. Why spend big when feature/power creep will make your purchase irrelevant.

If/when 6*'s come in - I'd expect that to repeat as well. Those that end up at the very top early on would find themselves outclassed as the drop rate/acquire rate/release rate goes up.

SnowcaTT

killahKlown said:

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.

It would seem to me that the easier 'solution' would be that the bigger your 5*, the better it is. It's a problem of scaling, when thirteen covers isn't that much different than 63, or 113.

And it's a solution that can be forward-thinking as well: because the cap doesn't have to always be 113, it doesn't have to remain that.

Cannibalqueen

I actually remember it differently.
the way I remember, at the very first, they went out of their way to claim that 5*s were not going to be tied to money.  Like CP was going to be a currency only earned in game.

I might be remembering entirely wrong tho.  But either way CP quickly became tied to alliance rewards for spending and I think that’s what ‘buy clubs’ were about.

but just saying I don’t remember it always being pitched as such.

edit:  also on topic of most powerful lore wise, I totally vote God Emperor Doom.  He created an entire reality.  Comic book Wanda might have a case but I feel like he took things even a few steps further.  It would take Franklin Richards to start competing with that power level.

Sekilicious

Cannibalqueen said:

edit:  also on topic of most powerful lore wise, I totally vote God Emperor Doom.  He created an entire reality.  Comic book Wanda might have a case but I feel like he took things even a few steps further.  It would take Franklin Richards to start competing with that power level.

I remember when Dark Phoenix was the most powerful entity in the Marvel Universe. I guess this is what we have to look forward to with power creep among five stars. Eventually they will be so powerful that, not only will they defeat an entire PvE and PvP with a single move, they will take over your phone and plan your week for you. Seems legit. 

Akoni

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)
  

Squirrel Girl for the win! They never show how she wins, though. Maybe she tickled Galactus to submission. We'll never know.

Bad said:

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.

Couldn't the same argument have been made about 5* too? I understand that the game is different now than it was then, but I'm failing to see how the implementation of a 6th tier is different than the implementation of a 5th tier. I agree with everything you stated, but it is true regardless of the tier in question, in my opinion.
What is it about the 5th tier, specifically, that made everyone say that this is the highest we should go? The only thing that comes to mind are the resources involved in getting a 5* to max. For a 6*, I can only imagine how many levels there would be and how many covers/shards it would take to reach it. (My guess is in the ballpark of 700.) Could it be something other than resources?

HoundofShadow

Introducing 6* that simply increase stats are just superficial. Subconsciously, it feels different. In reality, it's not going to be much different, chasing character wise.

What happens is they might stop churning out 4* and churn out more 5* and 6*. Instead of 4*/5* release, it's 5*/6*. Then, SCL 10 will be like SCL 8 or 9 for 6* players. Players will ask for SCL 11 for a harder challenge with more rewards. New 4*/5* players will be even more ISO-8 stuffed because 5* needs almost 600k ISO-8. 6* probably need 1 to 1.2 million ISO-8.

Everything is still the same. You are simply slapping a new label on an existing product and calling it something else when all the underlying mechanics are the same or similar. 

Allowing Supports in PvP is as good turning 5* into 6*. Gaining 12 green ap, 7 yellow ap, 7 black ap etc at the start of the game to finish matches in less than 45 seconds is scary.  Imagine that enemy Apocalypse lays out his repeaters on his second tur, use his red power on your team on his third turn, followed by his black power on the third turn with BRB throwing his Blue power as well. That's as good as fighting against 6*.

Akoni

HoundofShadow said:

Introducing 6* that simply increase stats are just superficial. Subconsciously, it feels different. In reality, it's not going to be much different, chasing character wise.

What happens is they might stop churning out 4* and churn out more 5* and 6*. Instead of 4*/5* release, it's 5*/6*. Then, SCL 10 will be like SCL 8 or 9 for 6* players. Players will ask for SCL 11 for a harder challenge with more rewards. New 4*/5* players will be even more ISO-8 stuffed because 5* needs almost 600k ISO-8. 6* probably need 1 to 1.2 million ISO-8.

Everything is still the same. You are simply slapping a new label on an existing product and calling it something else when all the underlying mechanics are the same or similar. 

Allowing Supports in PvP is as good turning 5* into 6*. Gaining 12 green ap, 7 yellow ap, 7 black ap etc at the start of the game to finish matches in less than 45 seconds is scary.  Imagine that enemy Apocalypse lays out his repeaters on his second tur, use his red power on your team on his third turn, followed by his black power on the third turn with BRB throwing his Blue power as well. That's as good as fighting against 6*.

Good points. I would add to that the issue of quality. Thus far, the consensus is that, recently, 4* characters are higher in quality than 5* characters in terms of powers and synergy. At this time, I would argue that Colossu5 is better than Polaris in stats alone, however, Polaris is the much better character in terms of powers and team dynamic. In a 1v1 scenario with no boosts, Colossu5 would crush Polaris. He simply does too much damage given Polaris' health. On the right team, though, Polaris could make mincemeat of Colossu5.

Until there is a decent population of quality 5* characters, I wouldn't want to see a 6th tier either. By decent, I mean 30-50 5* characters with powers (or synergy) that can compete with what 4* characters have in terms of powers and synergy. I'm guessing that won't happen until we have closer to 150 5* characters... maybe even 200 considering the droughts that have occurred between decent 5s.

san

6* will be my cue to exit, and I've been in this game since about a week before that glorious first anniversary!

EDIT: Apologies, forgot to answer OP's question. Essentially, many of us were quite peeved at the fact that 4* Wolverine had JUST been nerfed, and here entered a character more powerful than we'd ever seen in the game. Many felt cheated, including myself, who after months of deliberation, had dropped $50 to get XFW to 13 covers and was able to use him for 2 or so weeks before the nerf. I have not spent a dime since, as a matter of principle. While the 5*s didn't immediately change the game, they were quite tough to get for a while, and I recall feeling a sense of hopelessness about ever champing one. As I had gone F2P (b/c of XFW), I was left to collect 5*s at a very, very slow pace, and even with regular play, only have about 15 champed (though I do have something like 9 of the top 10 or 11 in that mix). 

Akoni

@san I think your comments show that it's about more than that one component of the game. It's all a finely tuned mesh that can leave the players feeling upset, abandoned, etc. if not done well. Although I believe it to be inevitable based on how the game is designed, I hope not to see 6* anytime soon. There is still a lot that can be accomplished as mentioned by many in this thread. In the meantime, I am learning a lot about players thoughts on the game and what it was like prior to my entrance.

entrailbucket

I see a few people confused about the exact order that stuff happened...5* and champions basically saved/extended the game financially.

When 5* first rolled out the game was very different.  There were no champions, and the max level of a 4* was 270.  This also meant there were no whales, and hardly anyone spent much money... because there was nothing to buy.  If you had all the good 4* at 270, and 3* at 166, any duplicate covers got sold for iso and/or hp.  No one at the high end bought token packs because they were useless... they basically just converted into iso.

5* changed this immediately.  5* were only obtainable from legendary tokens (CP did not exist yet), and you could only earn legendary tokens as the top rewards in pvp or pve.  You also got one legendary token for buying a (completely useless) 40-pack.

This gave rise to an entirely new class of whales.  Before 5*, the very biggest whales had lifetime spend in the hundreds of dollars, maybe $1000 or so.  Once 5* were created we started seeing people with tens of thousands in lifetime spend much more regularly (and in some cases, *significantly* more than that).  I knew people who'd drop $1000 in one sitting.  5* were extraordinarily expensive at release, and people actually paid for them.

Akoni

entrailbucket said:

I see a few people confused about the exact order that stuff happened...5* and champions basically saved/extended the game financially.

When 5* first rolled out the game was very different.  There were no champions, and the max level of a 4* was 270.  This also meant there were no whales, and hardly anyone spent much money... because there was nothing to buy.  If you had all the good 4* at 270, and 3* at 166, any duplicate covers got sold for iso and/or hp.  No one at the high end bought token packs because they were useless... they basically just converted into iso.

5* changed this immediately.  5* were only obtainable from legendary tokens (CP did not exist yet), and you could only earn legendary tokens as the top rewards in pvp or pve.  You also got one legendary token for buying a (completely useless) 40-pack.

This gave rise to an entirely new class of whales.  Before 5*, the very biggest whales had lifetime spend in the hundreds of dollars, maybe $1000 or so.  Once 5* were created we started seeing people with tens of thousands in lifetime spend much more regularly (and in some cases, *significantly* more than that).  I knew people who'd drop $1000 in one sitting.  5* were extraordinarily expensive at release, and people actually paid for them.

This actually makes a lot of sense. If what you say is accurate, then the inclusion of 5* was a part of the natural evolution of the game brought on by an inevitable game state. The reason I believe that 6* will be introduced someday is because of something similar. I don't think the game will reach a dire state where fewer purchases will cut revenue dangerously low. Instead, I think there will be a saturation point where the number of 4* and 5* is so great that entering 4* and 5* land becomes too overwhelming.

One way to combat this is to increase the population size below with 2* and 3* to increase the number of feeders. The second way is to venture into new territory with 6* to give players a higher goal than an overpopulated group of 4* and 5*. The third way is to update the current population (i.e. boosts) to increase interest. There are technically 2 other ways, but those are very destructive. Devs could eliminate characters and give a pay-out to players who lose them, but that won't happen. Devs could also re-design the game to function a bit differently, but that might be MPQ suicide. I'm in favor of adding 3* for easier transitions, a few 2* for farmers, and eventually 6*.

ThaRoadWarrior

There was a brief window of time where it seemed like there was a desire to pair a 5* release with an associated and more attainable 3* release, and I want to say one or two 3*s and 5*s were released that already had a 3* version. So Hawkeye, Gambit, Dr Strange, Thanos, Star Lord, and maybe one or two others came out with 3/5 launches at the same time, and then Dr Octopus 5* and maybe Panther came out when we already had the 3* kind of like they were going to catch up on matching everybody. But I think Gambit or Hawkeye were the final 3* releases we got and it's been a static tier ever since. I've been suspecting that we would eventually see a ramp up in 5* release and a subsequent slowdown in 4* releases ever since the Latest 12 improved odds of 4*s flattened out, and maybe if Supports had taken off as hoped that might have happened more rapidly. Right now it's kind of slowed down, but not in a way where 5*s are going to surpass the 4*s in our lifetime...