God-boosted 5*s paving the way for character buffs?

2

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  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    Omegased said:
    TheRiddler said:
    Because the only reason he was given a "boost" was for optics in giving us something in return for nerfing Worthy Cap and Bishop. It wasn't intended to make him a usable character.

    I don't agree with that AT ALL. 

    they wanted to start an airborne meta (Heimdall, AoA Mags), but to this date, it hasn't really worked. Archangel is the ONLY character at this stage that can effectively counter airbornes. my guess, is they made him a LITTLE better (and to be fair, his black which can STOP all ap generation could potentially be great) so he can counter.




    I don't view airbourne as a healthy mechanic. It's like invis, but harder to prevent / stop because it isn't always tied to a board tile.  

    Throg and some other 4s also send allies airbourne. 

    If a mechanic's "counter / check" is the same mechanic, I view that as a failed game design / philosophy.

    So if the enemy team go airbourne, an option your team has is to go airbourne yourself.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2021
    I don't see how being airborne is a meta since you can't do any damage while airborne. However, if more damage are done while airborne, then I'll call it airborne meta.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    If they really wanted to counter airbourne then they would have it that if both sides have airbourne characters they can be damaged again so the field is levelled. I mean it is sort of stupid that the only two people who can deal with somebody flying is Archangel and a lady with a shotgun when we have people with spaceships, jetpacks, flying surfboards, etc etc.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think there's one more who can deal with airborne character. I can't remember who's that but her ability goes something like if that enemy deals damage, deal damage even when he's airborne. Monica?
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    Ah yes, you are correct, it is Monica. She doesn't even need her Drone to do it, either!
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    Airborne (by choice) seems tied to AP and/or health gain with the exception of Gwenpool. Very few characters go inert for long multiturn stretches without that - really just Magneto even though he does splat out a few yellow right up front. Nova, Riri, and Nightcrawler only do it for a turn or two conditionally. 
  • hothie
    hothie Posts: 210 Tile Toppler
    HI. 4* player chiming in.

    I think one of the main reasons boosted Killmonger saw tons of play, even with 1 cover, is because of his black ability synergy with (or more precisely, against) Chavez. The ability to deal 10K damage passively, in response to Chavez's passive ability, can be devastating, at least in 4* land. There were many games where I felt like I needed to make sure I had 5 red before Mi Gente kicked in just to be able to keep my heroes from being killed too quickly.

    Having just a handful of 5*s with 2 covers, being able to play my boosted 5*s is kind of nice, as I normally am forced to solely rely upon my 4* champs to even have a chance of winning. It gives me a chance to test them out before the eventual transition to 5* land. I had a lot of fun running Daredevil while boosted, trying to get as much stun damage out of him as I could.

    I can't intelligently speak to what the devs should or shouldn't do, or try to get into their mindset, so I'll just enjoy the ride as much I can in the meantime. :)
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2021
    My boosted champed Killmonger was doing ~45k off that black passive, it was pretty cool, but infuriating when it would happen defensively against me lol. I will say that having this boost on characters who were kind of marginal, or not quite straightforward to play, like Killmonger and Magneto, has kind of incentivized me to give them more seat time and figure them out. I'm not sure that I'll continue using them unboosted, but essentially this has done the same thing to the 5* tier as has been happening in the 4* tier forever, where the boost week drives your personal meta. Overall I'm still into it, but that comes with the forever caveat that it hasn't burned me yet due to the shape of my roster.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    My boosted champed Killmonger was doing ~45k off that black passive, it was pretty cool, but infuriating when it would happen defensively against me lol. I will say that having this boost on characters who were kind of marginal, or not quite straightforward to play, like Killmonger and Magneto, has kind of incentivized me to give them more seat time and figure them out. I'm not sure that I'll continue using them unboosted, but essentially this has done the same thing to the 5* tier as has been happening in the 4* tier forever, where the boost week drives your personal meta. Overall I'm still into it, but that comes with the forever caveat that it hasn't burned me yet due to the shape of my roster.
    From what I've gathered from the 4* players here, the 4* meta isn't like this anymore.  The last time I used 4* it was 100% driven by the boosts -- whoever was boosted that week was the best character, if you didn't have them you were screwed, and they were everywhere.

    Now it sounds like the 4* tier is basically the same way the 5* tier was pre-boost -- just wall to wall meta teams in every event no matter who's boosted.  I'm not sure what happened.  I'd suspect the increase in relative power level of the best 4* (Polaris, America, Karnak, Rocket) has caused people to go extremely narrow in their roster building and rendered everyone else useless, even +100 levels.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    That must be a Polaris/Karnak development, but I was in the same boat as you as a 4* player. I transitioned back when Doom was in latest to mostly seeing 5* MMR, and at that time it was all Kitty/Rocket teams from then on out for quite a long time until it became BRBishop for the next year.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    My boosted champed Killmonger was doing ~45k off that black passive, it was pretty cool, but infuriating when it would happen defensively against me lol. I will say that having this boost on characters who were kind of marginal, or not quite straightforward to play, like Killmonger and Magneto, has kind of incentivized me to give them more seat time and figure them out. I'm not sure that I'll continue using them unboosted, but essentially this has done the same thing to the 5* tier as has been happening in the 4* tier forever, where the boost week drives your personal meta. Overall I'm still into it, but that comes with the forever caveat that it hasn't burned me yet due to the shape of my roster.
    From what I've gathered from the 4* players here, the 4* meta isn't like this anymore.  The last time I used 4* it was 100% driven by the boosts -- whoever was boosted that week was the best character, if you didn't have them you were screwed, and they were everywhere.

    Now it sounds like the 4* tier is basically the same way the 5* tier was pre-boost -- just wall to wall meta teams in every event no matter who's boosted.  I'm not sure what happened.  I'd suspect the increase in relative power level of the best 4* (Polaris, America, Karnak, Rocket) has caused people to go extremely narrow in their roster building and rendered everyone else useless, even +100 levels.
    I wonder how much of that is the relative power of Polaris/Karnak and how much is most 4* players having thin rosters due to the iso crunch. Probably Polaris but maybe exacerbated by lack of iso to champ boosted characters 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sekilicious said:
    entrailbucket said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    My boosted champed Killmonger was doing ~45k off that black passive, it was pretty cool, but infuriating when it would happen defensively against me lol. I will say that having this boost on characters who were kind of marginal, or not quite straightforward to play, like Killmonger and Magneto, has kind of incentivized me to give them more seat time and figure them out. I'm not sure that I'll continue using them unboosted, but essentially this has done the same thing to the 5* tier as has been happening in the 4* tier forever, where the boost week drives your personal meta. Overall I'm still into it, but that comes with the forever caveat that it hasn't burned me yet due to the shape of my roster.
    From what I've gathered from the 4* players here, the 4* meta isn't like this anymore.  The last time I used 4* it was 100% driven by the boosts -- whoever was boosted that week was the best character, if you didn't have them you were screwed, and they were everywhere.

    Now it sounds like the 4* tier is basically the same way the 5* tier was pre-boost -- just wall to wall meta teams in every event no matter who's boosted.  I'm not sure what happened.  I'd suspect the increase in relative power level of the best 4* (Polaris, America, Karnak, Rocket) has caused people to go extremely narrow in their roster building and rendered everyone else useless, even +100 levels.
    I wonder how much of that is the relative power of Polaris/Karnak and how much is most 4* players having thin rosters due to the iso crunch. Probably Polaris but maybe exacerbated by lack of iso to champ boosted characters 
    Lack of iso was a huge problem in those days too.  Not only did they *massively* reduce the cost to level 4* over the years, they increased iso rewards significantly and introduced shield ranks which pay out millions of iso.  Of course there are more 4* now, but I'm not sure if the net effect is positive or negative.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2021
    Did net iso in circulation go down during Shardmageddon? I don't recall now. I know it used to be my strategy to buy all my 4*s up to...209? whatever the old shield training 3rd track barrier was so they'd be all ready whenever they came around, and then it was only ~215k iso to go the rest of the way to champ when it was convenient to do it. Once shield training went away, then returned with no such level gating, I just leave everyone at 70 until I can/care to champ a character all at once for the full ~370k. Same with 5*s - unless there is some pressing need to do so, they all stay at 255 now until I have the ~570k it takes to champ one all at once.
  • Cannibalqueen
    Cannibalqueen Posts: 191 Tile Toppler
    edited July 2021
    Saving up resources like that would drive me crazy. I do this system where I rotate between chosen 5,4 and 3*s.  So today for example,  as soon as I got around 15k iso, my 5thanos  went up five levels.  Then next 15K, I promoted my Morbius and put 2.5k into my 3*Gamora dupe since Morbius was my last 4*.  
    Next 15K I get is going all into Gamora.  Then it will cycle back to Thanos, and since I will still not have a 4 to put iso into, I can put 5 levels into one of my classic 5s.

    that would probably drive some of you crazy, but I like it because there’s constant incremental progress.  It’s like I am growing a little garden every day.  I am able to keep up with new releases, and every month or so start make a little more progress on those classic 5s.

    edit: also I remember doing same thing with 4s back then for shield training.  It was 209 as I remember as well.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    I can see adding a few levels on a 5* as you get the iso, but it's been my experience that 4*s are like trash until they are champed, so I always just found it best to bring them from 0 to hero all at once. The only time I'd level them partially was if their DDQ crash came around before they were champed. Most 4*s can do it up around level 150 unless it's a particularly lopsided matchup. I do the same thing with 2*s - i keep 3 champed for DDQ, then when they max out i just flip them and use that iso to champe whichever random next one happens to have the most saved covers in the bank. It's too iso-intensive for me to champ 2*s constantly when I'm trying to get a 5* or 4* done, and they cycle fast enough from daily play for the most part.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’ve been putting characters to 209 when at ten covers as well. I’m pretty sure that is the influence of the old shield training. It helps me keep things organized. Lately I’m less iso poor and more iso starved so I put the characters ready to go to 71
  • LavaManLee
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,434 Chairperson of the Boards
    The good news is that ISO positive is a thing one can get to eventually.  The bad news is that it took me about five and a half years to get there.  But it can be done.  I once thought it would never happen and then it kind of sneaks up on you.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah it does get easier when you catch up on the 4s. I’m not post-iso, but it takes about 12 days for me to champ a 5* from 255. Since I don’t have a backlog of them sitting at 13 covers, it doesn’t ever feel overwhelming to champ them as they complete.
  • Theghouse
    Theghouse Posts: 334 Mover and Shaker
    edited July 2021
    I think the devs implementation of the boost is a strong indication that character buffs are NOT coming. 

    I also think the timing of this addition being right after so many top players broke record breaking hoards for 550s is no coincidence.

    Character rebalances demand resources for programming, testing, and implementation.  They also punish players who decided not to spend resources acquiring a character who they did not like.  Not to mention that with classic dilution if an older character was suddenly made great there's no meaningful way to make progress towards acquiring them, and more importantly the game is not currently set up to generate large revenue from classic tokens or older 5*s.

    5* boosts require very little to implement as the boost code already exists, and instead of punishing players for not acquiring characters, it instead says "your 550 Okoye will always be good but every once in a while these characters will be much stronger to match".

    I think the "curation" of the boost list also helped entice usage.  I'm sure Panther and Thanos would have seen much less boosted play if they weren't together for return of the Panthos.  Similarly, if Archangel wasn't boosted for Karolina Dean who sends her whole team airborne, I'm sure usage would have different. And obviously Okoye's omission from her expected spot speaks volumes.

    Prior to Wanda's release, there was an endless echo of complaints about big Okoyes and the stale Hulkoye meta.  Not only did we get several meta shaking 5* characters in last several months, with electro being another direct iHulk counter that feeds your own Okoye or Apoc, but different 5* boosted characters will change the potential meta every week.

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