Does classic store need a boost?

Akoni

I know there are some that pull from the Classic Legends store (CL), but the general consensus among experienced players is to save your resources for the Latest Legends store (LL) instead. This leaves me to believe that the only ones who invest in CL are new players and those that aren't interested in LL. 

I am also aware that CL exists so that past characters aren't lost to the void of irrelevance. It just seems to me that CL should be more beneficial (and tempting) for more experienced players. It's already cheaper at 20cp compared to LL's 25cp, but that doesn't seem to be enough incentive.

I was thinking that CL tokens could be offered in the rewards system. LL tokens are highly prized. CL tokens wouldn't be nearly as valuable and still somewhat difficult to get, but still worth something. I could see it as a decent prize for 3* to 4* players. 

Is this even a good idea? What are the pros and cons?

Sekilicious

I like the idea of CL tokens that are awarded as part of progression starting at SCL7, and perhaps additional at SCL9.  This would be a great boost that would help with 4* dilution and classic 5* without upsetting the current game economy. People have been asking for that for years though.

DAZ0273

On the one hand the existence of the Classic store doesn't really do much in terms of helping pursue a specific older character. On the other hand in a rare foray to the CL just as my LT luck was going so badly I did miraculously manage to pull the last cover needed for Adam Warlock and a much needed iHulk cover. I'm not expecting that sort of luck to last, nor will I be dipping in too often.

It is fairly rare that anything is added in without something being taken out when it comes to rewards and MPQ. The fear would be CP would be targeted. The odds would still be horrendous unless they also introduced some sort of rotating set of 5's that were featured for limited periods with better odds - sort of like Vaulting but not retiring the characters but rotating them, maybe every season? That would give a more targeted way of trying to get Classics although it would still be tough.

The cynical viewpoint would be it is in their best interests to keep the odds in Classic hopeless so they can instead offer desirable older Classics in special stores at the 25 CP price.

HoundofShadow

In the past, cp tokens were given as rewards. However, players wanted more flexibility. So, the dev convert it to cps.  Here it is:

Demiurge Quote:
"With the introduction of Classic Legends packs, we heard that players wanted greater flexibility in what Legendary packs they were able to redeem. Starting in the next few days, we will be changing rewards from Legendary Tokens to Command Points in a few areas. Here are the details:

So, it won't work. 

Look at the history of bonus heroes, shards, players don't want to be "locked" and want flexibility.

jp1

Some kind of rotation of availability in classics is much needed. The pool of 5s is too large and your odds of getting what you need are nigh impossible.

I would prefer CP based as well and maybe a featured 12 like they used to do with the 4*s.

entrailbucket

I pull only classics with CP because my goal is to max out all the 5*.  I don't care which 5* I actually pull, because I want them all, so I have no interest in spending more CP per token to target a particular guy.

Making progress in this way is extremely slow, but I'm not sure if it's slower than hoarding for multiple years and then pulling all at once.

If they changed the pool to include only a subset of guys, I'd continue to pull whichever token was cheapest, as long as it included guys I don't already have maxed out.

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

In the past, cp tokens were given as rewards. However, players wanted more flexibility. So, the dev convert it to cps.  Here it is:

Demiurge Quote:
"With the introduction of Classic Legends packs, we heard that players wanted greater flexibility in what Legendary packs they were able to redeem. Starting in the next few days, we will be changing rewards from Legendary Tokens to Command Points in a few areas. Here are the details:

So, it won't work. 

Look at the history of bonus heroes, shards, players don't want to be "locked" and want flexibility.

When were there classic tokens? I'd imagine that was a change from Latest Legends tokens to CP, or else less special legendary tokens to CP, but either way that sounds like a very old post lol.

Classic Legends can help you target a specific classic legend only if you are looking at the reduced buy in of 20cp as offering 20% more shards over time. At that point it's all about maximizing what you're doing with your shards rather than trying to mitigate RNG by pulling from a reduced character pool.

Is it "worth" doing? That's really hard to say - your mileage is definitely going to vary based on the shape of your 4 and 5* roster and how many of them are champed, and to what degree for further rewards.

If all LTs were converted to 25cp, I'd probably still just pull from Latest on the premise that power creeped new characters are inherently better than classics day to day, and the reduced draw pool in Latest means I'll be able to champ those (generally) as they are released while working my way backwards through the classics through 4* feeders and direct favoriting. I used to pull from classic when I was trying to get at least one cover for every character in the 4 and 5* tier, but that was well before the introduction of shards as a concept. When Fi5k was released in I think December '18 I committed to pulling mostly exclusively out of Latest so I could try to stay current, which has been working out pretty well minus a few exceptions.

entrailbucket

It's not just about shards.  4* champions are extremely significant reward factories that kick out a large amount of CP and tokens.  Over many years and thousands of pulls, a 20% increase in 4* pulls has allowed me to build a 4* dupe farm that spits out enough tokens to champion all the latest guys before they leave the latest pool.

This whole discussion is just bizarre to me.  Every time I bring up what I do people are like "oh nobody could ever do that it's impossible" and I'm like "no I actually did this, here's how" and they're like "impossible, nobody can do this, nobody has ever done it, terrible idea."

Well, I did it!  It actually happened!  There is evidence!

You can look up my roster in the alliance Clochards to see what it looks like when you only spend CP on classics for 5 or more years.  I've spent money over the years, but it's probably about 10% of what you think I've spent.  I don't think I've ever qualified as a whale. 

I've had 5* covers expire, when that was still a thing.  I've traded in 3 saved covers to get a guy championed plenty of times.  I've had guys where the covers fell like 13/0/5.  I've pulled lots of Banner and Wasp and Cable covers.  I didn't die!  My phone didn't explode!

ThaRoadWarrior

I've been considering splitting my pulls down here and there, but it's a tough choice to commit to since what I've been doing "works" for me. I just looked at @entrailbucket's roster, and that is indeed a serious roster lol. I have to imagine having a critical mass of champed 5*s really helps with resource aquisition also since every 2nd level is either 25cp or an LT. What are you doing with your 5* shards, are you targeting whoever is next out of Latest, or just leaving all of that stuff completely unselected and random?

entrailbucket

I always bonus the oldest Latest that I don't have championed yet.  As of today that's Scarlet Witch (she's at lvl435) because I have Colossus championed already.

For 4* bonus shards they're permanently set to the 5* feeders only.  I do sell duplicates of 4* feeders when they hit 370.  I keep 370 duplicates of non-feeders in hopes that someday they'll get updated.


Ultimately I understand that this way isn't for everyone.  The progress you make is extremely slow, but it is consistent.  It's only noticeable over a *very* long period of time.  A lot of people don't have the patience for it...but on the other hand, a lot of people are willing to make absolutely no progress for years at a time while hoarding!

It might not be for you but it's not impossible.

ThaRoadWarrior

I've been all-in on Latest to stay current, and then using my 5* and 4* shards to play catch up on older characters. It seems like a long road either way, I'm not sure what the right move is for me from here. I feel like I've got what I'm doing down pretty cleanly, but I also feel like going to Classic would perhaps ironically be a faster way to grow my roster out the other direction too.

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've been all-in on Latest to stay current, and then using my 5* and 4* shards to play catch up on older characters. It seems like a long road either way, I'm not sure what the right move is for me from here. I feel like I've got what I'm doing down pretty cleanly, but I also feel like going to Classic would perhaps ironically be a faster way to grow my roster out the other direction too.

I would suggest thinking about what your long-term goal is.  My goal has always been to get every 5* character to 550.  I realize this isn't possible, and I've only got 1 in 7 years, but my strategy is designed to support that goal.

What's your long term goal?  Is it "everybody to 550?"  Is it to champion every character, then get the meta characters to a higher level?  Is it to max out the meta characters fully while avoiding covers for bad characters?  Is it maxing out your favorite character?  Is it just to tread water and get all the new 5* to 450 as they come out?  Or something else entirely? 

There's a million ways to do it and you should think about what your goal is, then use a strategy that supports that.  Don't let me or anybody else tell you the "right" way, because it really doesn't matter that much.  Even though my strategy is different than... everyone, I've never had much problem competing with them, and with boosted 5* I might even have an advantage.

ThaRoadWarrior

I don’t really want any runaway leveled 5*, I’ve always been after everyone at ~450 when that seemed like an unclimbable mountain. But I’m now in a situation where that seems more doable with over half of them champed and all the rest with at least 6 covers (save Knull and Ronan). I am starting to think that going into classic and using my direct 5* shard to stay on whoever is next to drop out could be just as workable for that, and get me to a “complete” roster of classics a little faster. But possibly not. I need to think about it.

Akoni

HoundofShadow said:

In the past, cp tokens were given as rewards. However, players wanted more flexibility. So, the dev convert it to cps.  Here it is:

Demiurge Quote:
"With the introduction of Classic Legends packs, we heard that players wanted greater flexibility in what Legendary packs they were able to redeem. Starting in the next few days, we will be changing rewards from Legendary Tokens to Command Points in a few areas. Here are the details:

So, it won't work. 

Look at the history of bonus heroes, shards, players don't want to be "locked" and want flexibility.

I would argue that players are pretty locked in with LL tokens. They don't have the freedom to use those in CL. I would also argue that this situation is different than the one quoted. We still have CP which can be used in various stores, so the flexibility is still there. Just as with LL tokens, CL tokens would increase interest and utility of the CL store, but nothing more. 

ThaRoadWarrior

As far as a classic legends token, I think those would SURELY come at the expense of some other existing reward, whether that's loose CP or replacing LTs or something, so I would definitely encourage all of us to be careful what we wish for when it comes to that.

Akoni

That is certainly a possibility. Devs may not want to add to the rewards and prefer to take something away to maintain some calculated balance. Ultimately, we have no control over what exactly happens. We can only discuss and make suggestions. If and how they are implemented is up to the devs.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think turning all LT rewards into 25CP would give the maximum flexibility. Because they exist and lock you in to that specific store for some sizable fraction of your available pulls, there is a very strong incentive to just commit to that store and maximize your odds rather than diluting your pulls across various sources of legendary covers. Creating more tokens only helps if they aren't going to be replacing existing rewards in any way but be purely additional and historically we haven't seen a whole lot of that.

Sekilicious

entrailbucket said:

It's not just about shards.  4* champions are extremely significant reward factories that kick out a large amount of CP and tokens.  Over many years and thousands of pulls, a 20% increase in 4* pulls has allowed me to build a 4* dupe farm that spits out enough tokens to champion all the latest guys before they leave the latest pool.

This whole discussion is just bizarre to me.  Every time I bring up what I do people are like "oh nobody could ever do that it's impossible" and I'm like "no I actually did this, here's how" and they're like "impossible, nobody can do this, nobody has ever done it, terrible idea."

Well, I did it!  It actually happened!  There is evidence!

You can look up my roster in the alliance Clochards to see what it looks like when you only spend CP on classics for 5 or more years.  I've spent money over the years, but it's probably about 10% of what you think I've spent.  I don't think I've ever qualified as a whale. 

I've had 5* covers expire, when that was still a thing.  I've traded in 3 saved covers to get a guy championed plenty of times.  I've had guys where the covers fell like 13/0/5.  I've pulled lots of Banner and Wasp and Cable covers.  I didn't die!  My phone didn't explode!

I like this strategy. My cousin used to do something similar, though no where near optimally if that’s possible. He managed to champ Panthos until the UI changes drove him from the game. He wasn’t able to get the 4* farm going but I imagine that takes numerous years.  I will try it until I get bored and decide to hoard. 

Bad

Well given the present scenario pulling for classics it begins to be a not so bad idea.

Classic store could be at least separated in 2 parts, that would increase the odds on the character you want per 2.
I like the idea of CL tokens as reward.
Look at Lighting rounds, its from tuestady to thursday.
From friday to sunday it could be another special pvp event giving CL token as progression. It could be funny and different, with champed 5*s loaners, or 4*s champed. 
An event like this possibly would entice all tiers.

HoundofShadow

That post was in 2016, I think. 

Giving a 4*/5* + 15 4* shards and 3 5* shards will definitely affect the other rewards. That's adding an extra 20 cps into the game. They will start trading it for hero points + cp again. 

Even in SCL 10, they added Mighty Tokens for only Challenge Nodes (I think). Currently, Challenge Nodes is the hardest nodes in the game. It's going to be scary to think how difficult the nodes got to be to earn a Classic Token.

entrailbucket

I think most people would rather have the 20cp to use in Latest than be forced to pull a Classic token, because it either supports their chosen strategy, or they haven't thought about their strategy/goals and they're following "best practices."

If boosted 5* don't get people to reevaluate their strategy, I don't think anything else the devs can do will.  If they dropped the price or split the store I don't think it would move the needle at all -- the inertia is too strong.