This game is NOT F2P!

HailMary

rkd80 wrote:

So I just grind it out with the same team over and over and over until I finally collect the missing 5-6 covers for Thor, Ares, OBW and maybe C. Storm? So I roughly need 20 specific covers for these characters, and basic math suggests:
That I get one 2* cover for every twenty 1* cover while playing PvP. However only half of those are useful to me. So for every 40 matches I can *hope* to get a viable 2*. However there is also tiny little ISO drops too, so it is more like 1 out of 50 for my 2* cover. Which means I need to play around 1,000 PVP matches to get a 2* roster. That is 1,000 matches with the same team - over and over and over, now I am estimating because at some point presumably one 2* character is maxed and we can use them, but the monotony is overwhelming.

That is what makes this game NOT F2P. Because nobody in their right mind would play 1,000 matches just to get a 2* roster - so we pay. But it is waaaaay to expensive, something Clintman has eloquently demonstrated in his various posts.

At 40ish days, I had a L77 AWolv, a L61 Thor, and only a couple covers for OBW. There were no fight-completion cover drops (i.e. zero 2* covers per 10,000 fights). Iso drops were for just 20 Iso (I think). My 2* Thor was stuck at 5/2/5 until after my LThor crossed the L100 mark; my OBW was completely unusable for 95% of my 2* phase; I didn't have an Ares at all until after I already got 3 L100+ characters.

In the past two weeks, I've thrown away at least 15 OBW covers (very few blue, oddly enough), and least 7-8 covers each for Thor, AWolv, and Ares. So, no, you don't get sympathy for not maxing out a top-tier 2* team within 3 weeks of starting the game, esp. when you're veritably showered with 2* covers.

Oh, and by the way, I started playing at the end of January, I've been F2P the entire time, and I now have 5 L141s.

Unknown

rkd80 wrote:

I showed you the math, the odds are derived from the math on the forums. PvE yields a very negligible amount of 2* covers. You place well there is an event token, but that could be 2* or 3* or whatever. Hence people get a wide distribution of covers but none of it is actually usable.

The odds and the math you presented are just random numbers that aren't backed by anything factual, so that's pretty irrelevent.

Unknown

Have you finished the prologue yet? A pretty viable 2* team jumps out quickly if you collect all the covers. How do you think most of us progressed early on when the going was tougher?

PVP fights drop loads of random 2*s. Since they've been introduced I must have sold 30 OBW covers at a minimum, let alone all the other 2*s. The ability to collect 2*s has never been easier so your complaints seem to be really iffy.

rkd80

As all of you are throwing away 2* covers faster than you get them, clearly the random number generator is not going my way and most of you have a lot more patience. The math is not iffy by the way, I have to dig up the post but it seems like most agree that for every twenty or so 1* that you get from pvp/standard token you get roughly one 2*. So I doubled it because only half of the 2* are worth getting.

Unknown

I suspect if we all deleted all our 2*s we'll find that we're not getting as many 2* as we think from PvP, and certainly not always in the right colors. That said it's hard to have sympathy to be getting the wrong 2*s compared to when you get nothing and possibly have to consider doing worse in a PvP event just to get some 2*s you need.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I suspect if we all deleted all our 2*s we'll find that we're not getting as many 2* as we think from PvP, and certainly not always in the right colors. That said it's hard to have sympathy to be getting the wrong 2*s compared to when you get nothing and possibly have to consider doing worse in a PvP event just to get some 2*s you need.

Idk about that. I feel like I get at least 2-3 Ares covers a day (by far my most seen cover in the past month or so)

HailMary

Phantron wrote:

I suspect if we all deleted all our 2*s we'll find that we're not getting as many 2* as we think from PvP, and certainly not always in the right colors. That said it's hard to have sympathy to be getting the wrong 2*s compared to when you get nothing and possibly have to consider doing worse in a PvP event just to get some 2*s you need.

At least for OBW, I know my numbers are right: I started to build a second OBW three times already, only to abandon it a couple of black & purple covers into the build because I only want a 3/5/5 OBW, and building a second one is kinda stupid, esp. if I still need Iso for 3*s.

For Ares, I haven't seen a green Ares in a while, but have gotten several reds and yellows. Same goes for AWolv: I don't remember seeing any greens recently, but I got quite a few reds and yellows. For Thor, I feel like I only get reds.

Unknown

This is still an F2P game. You are only on your 21st day. If you are bored grinding your 2* covers when they are so much easier to collect after PvP cover rewards have been introduced, you're gonna have a bad time transitioning from 2* to 3*. Transition from 1* to 2* is easier now. When I got my 2* covers that I need, there wasn't PvP cover rewards after each match. I won most of them through winning them in PvPs. It can be frustrating though. I only recently got my last OBW cover that I need and I've been playing for more than 4 months now.

It is worse when you aim for 3* covers because they are too difficult to get from PvP placement rewards now. Since you are a new player, you won't have hard time placing top 50 or better to win them. That's how the bracketing supposedly works. It is rewarding for new players but it gets harder and harder to progress as you continue playing. Other than those points, I agree with your post.

Unknown

Game is f2p, but I think the progression is a valid critique.

1. They made the 50-100 reward ****.
2. They made the 10-50 reward easier to get for new players.
3. You can get covers through RNG, but;
4. RNG sucks.

Dauthi

rkd80 wrote:

I spent about 10 bucks so far buying roster spots. I jumped on this forum quickly and began doing everything right. So I maxed out my storm, im35 and got bw high enough. Specced them out just right. Put a lot of time into it, so I got there quickly. It was fun to progress, be choosy who I fight and anticipate the next wins. I placed ok in PvE/PvP events, but it occurred to me that placing too high made little sense - because what use was that 3* cover anyway?

Exactly, your objective should have been the 2* cover in pvp rewards since you don't have the HP to expand to 3*.

At this stage, partially based on bad luck, I have 7-8 covers for: Thor, Ares, C. Storm, MMN, Wolvie, Moonstone, Bullseye. Because the character progression in MPQ is completely broken, whereby 2* characters with 7 covers are weaker than my full 1* characters - I cant use them! I made a post about this earlier, but it is laughably stupid that they would design it this way...or perhaps an evil genius, since they are nudging me into spending money to buy those additional covers to make my 2* viable. Well, D3, at 5 bucks a cover, I would need 15 more covers to get one 2* team. Thanks, but not thanks. That is stupid, I can buy an xbox game for that.

First you should save your slots and dump Moonstone and Bullseye (optionally Wolverine too).

Pursuing the 2* rewards in pvp helps, but it is hard to imagine that PVP is not providing you with enough 2* through random drops. Remember, progression is slow, but like others have said I started playing mid October and I am just now getting into the high 100 3*. It has to be slow because there is little to do once you get there except wait for new characters to collect and new PVE to unfold.

NONE of the events make sense in placing high, since it is actually more 3* covers that are of no use. I am top 10 in the PvE, but what for? So I can get 2 Sentry covers for which I would just need to buy more roster space for?

Exactly. This seems to be your problem. Why are you trying to shift to 3* before 2*? Strategically if you have space you can try to collect one or two 3* so the 3* transition is smoother, but really your goal right now should be maxing the best 2* covers.

There is no way to put time into this game and get what I need, which is 2* in my case. Instead I get 1* non-stop. For the more mature players, it seems they have exactly the same problem, but one stage higher - where they just keep getting useless 2* covers.

Players one step ahead of you have to actually win their covers, then don't just get them infinitely dumped on them like what is happening to you in pvp. Your progression is exponentially faster then theirs right now.

1) D3 needs to listen to the players on this forum. You guys know what you are talking about.
2) Before any PvE/PvP there should be an option of what you want to play for. A 1*, 2* or 3* bucket. Then all rewards will be coming to you in that bucket. The difficulty of the event will then be scaled based on the natural selection of the players.
3) Make 2* viable before all the covers appear. Why should a level 50 Ares be weaker than a level 50 IM35? That is silly.

1. They do, there have been many changes implemented due to player input, however no company can keep up with all requests.
2. There is no 3* bucket like there is 1* and 2*. You have to win them or get really lucky on random cover tokens. Why do you feel 2* progress should be as fast as 1*? Why are you in a rush to get to the end of the game instead of enjoying it?
3. It makes perfect sense. It allows 1* to partially compete with 2* to allow an easier transition. It's the same for 2* vs 3* which is why you see so many original black widows running around. Without it I can't imagine how hard it would be for 2* to win 3* covers.

Unknown

If you are primarily PvP player you should just get Thor and OBW and leave all the other slots open for whatever 3* you happened to pick up. You don't even need Ares if you're not interested in PvE (Thor is better for PvP).

The whole 'buy more roster thing' is really a hoarder mentality, and this is coming from someone who hoards every character out there. But I don't pretend my 39 characters are all doing something useful except for me to look at and admire their powerful levels. For PvP you can get away with about 5 characters until the very top (at that point your featured character does need to be of nontrivial level). PvE is a bit more demanding on roster, but still, it's not like having Bullseye on your roster is going to do anything useful there.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

If you are primarily PvP player you should just get Thor and OBW and leave all the other slots open for whatever 3* you happened to pick up. You don't even need Ares if you're not interested in PvE (Thor is better for PvP).

The whole 'buy more roster thing' is really a hoarder mentality, and this is coming from someone who hoards every character out there. But I don't pretend my 39 characters are all doing something useful except for me to look at and admire their powerful levels. For PvP you can get away with about 5 characters until the very top (at that point your featured character does need to be of nontrivial level). PvE is a bit more demanding on roster, but still, it's not like having Bullseye on your roster is going to do anything useful there.

Why do you think Thor is better for PvP than Ares? Thor takes so **** long to get going. Several days ago I thought using Thor against Thor was better since with Ares you'll be giving him green on defense and possibly on offense. Later I realized Ares makes the games much quicker due to all of his skills being cheaper than Thor (except for his red which is an ok AoE, so it's fine). Maybe because Ares needs more healing?

Unknown

What do you honestly expect? To have maxed 3* characters and competing with people who've been around since the game started right away? If you invest the time like we all have, you'd probably be where we all are. Quit complaining, it's pathetic.

Sad thing is it's probably only going to get worse because there will be a greater difference between the elite players and new players and the new players are going to be upset because they can't compete with the good alliances and getting the good covers.

Well that's just too bad. It took us months to get here; don't be shocked if it will take you the same amount to do the same. Either way, stop complaining.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

Why do you think Thor is better for PvP than Ares? Thor takes so tinykitty long to get going. Several days ago I thought using Thor against Thor was better since with Ares you'll be giving him green on defense and possibly on offense. Later I realized Ares makes the games much quicker due to all of his skills being cheaper than Thor (except for his red which is an ok AoE, so it's fine). Maybe because Ares needs more healing?

Thor combos with anyone with a great green power and there's a lot of them out there, including himself.

Ares is only better at getting rid of OBW faster which may be important at the 2* tier, but Thor is better against people with normal (5800) or higher HPs.

Dauthi

Phantron wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Why do you think Thor is better for PvP than Ares? Thor takes so tinykitty long to get going. Several days ago I thought using Thor against Thor was better since with Ares you'll be giving him green on defense and possibly on offense. Later I realized Ares makes the games much quicker due to all of his skills being cheaper than Thor (except for his red which is an ok AoE, so it's fine). Maybe because Ares needs more healing?

Thor combos with anyone with a great green power and there's a lot of them out there, including himself.

Ares is only better at getting rid of OBW faster which may be important at the 2* tier, but Thor is better against people with normal (5800) or higher HPs.

I would also add that all of Thor's abilities are great while Ares red is mediocre. His yellow is amazing but it can also reduce play time in events due to hurting himself consistently. I think Ares is better on the defense (his yellow and green is more likely to go off when starved by other players) but offense is typically more useful in pvp.

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

I would also add that all of Thor's abilities are great while Ares red is mediocre. His yellow is amazing but it can also reduce play time in events due to hurting himself consistently. I think Ares is better on the defense (his yellow and green is more likely to go off when starved by other players) but offense is typically more useful in pvp.

Well, Ares is better at killing OBW, which matters a lot in that range (usually drop an Onslaught early can do the trick). However, Thor is better at killing anyone else.

rkd80

Thanks to everyone who responded, I appreciate the criticism and suggestions.

I think many miss my point, in that, relying on the random drops appears to be impossible and having 100k ISO with now 70+ 1* covers in the queue demonstrated that I tried, really tried.

Of course I do not expect to compete or have anything even remote to the seasoned players who put in the time and effort, I never asked for that, i simply pointed out that to get a sense of progression in this game currently appears to be impossible without paying. That is all.

So tonight I played about 20 PvP matches in LR and got three 2* drops. So perhaps they drop more frequently than I imagined, but for me it was 2 bullseye and a moonstone. Again. For the record, I do not have them in my roster, I delete them. The only 2* covers in my roster are: Ares, Thor, OBW, A. Wolvie, MMN, C. Storm. The reason I have them all is because i have 6-7 covers for each, like I said. This is what makes the game so frustrating. My plan is to max out Thor, Ares ad OBW. Use M. storm as support, since I do not see a huge benefit in C.Storm.

I really wish that I could somehow take the time I am willing to devote and channel it to something useful. But after putting in all this time, it just feels like spinning my wheels.

Just because some of you had it easier or harder does not invalidate my observations.
Again though, thanks for the feedback, I post on the public forum and deserve all the reactions, positive and negative.

Unknown

You can't count on getting any particular cover you need out of 2* from the random rewards, but they add up over time. If you're primarily a PvP player, you only need to keep OBW/Thor, and maybe Ares. The rest you should just sell until you've the HP to buy extra roster slots.

HailMary

I'm impressed by your grace in the face of so much criticism. Kudos.

rkd80 wrote:

I think many miss my point, in that, relying on the random drops appears to be impossible and having 100k ISO with now 70+ 1* covers in the queue demonstrated that I tried, really tried.

Of course I do not expect to compete or have anything even remote to the seasoned players who put in the time and effort, I never asked for that, i simply pointed out that to get a sense of progression in this game currently appears to be impossible without paying. That is all.

As a semi-seasoned F2P player, hearing of a F2P player getting Thor, Ares, and OBW all past 10 covers in their first month would still astound me, even though I know that the new cover drops make 1*-2* progression generally much faster than what I experienced.

Our general point is this: you may think that relying on random drops is "impossible," but we pushed our rosters all the way to 3* without any fight-completion drops whatsoever. Some of us did it completely F2P. "A few 2* every once in a while" is still more than "literally zero 2*." Further, Iso is coming far more easily now than it did a couple months ago. Once you do start getting more good covers rolling in, you'll be rather Iso-starved, I expect. I know I am. Progression sometimes happens in fits and starts. You'll be back in the RNG's good graces at some point.

rkd80 wrote:

My plan is to max out Thor, Ares ad OBW. Use M. storm as support, since I do not see a huge benefit in C.Storm.

I really wish that I could somehow take the time I am willing to devote and channel it to something useful. But after putting in all this time, it just feels like spinning my wheels.

To put it bluntly: 21 days isn't much time. Your current progression is coming along quite well. Also, C.Storm is pretty awesome, especially in PVE. Raging Tempest can reactively wipe an entire enemy team all by itself if you eat a big AOE attack, and pound-for-pound, Wind Storm is probably one of the best direct-damage abilities in the entire game.

rkd80 wrote:

Just because some of you had it easier or harder does not invalidate my observations.
Again though, thanks for the feedback, I post on the public forum and deserve all the reactions, positive and negative.

Fair enough. But, we're pointing out that the conclusions you draw from your observations (e.g. "F2P is impossible") are based on an unrealistic expectation for progression speed.

HailMary

I'm impressed by your grace in the face of so much criticism. Kudos.

rkd80 wrote:

I think many miss my point, in that, relying on the random drops appears to be impossible and having 100k ISO with now 70+ 1* covers in the queue demonstrated that I tried, really tried.

Of course I do not expect to compete or have anything even remote to the seasoned players who put in the time and effort, I never asked for that, i simply pointed out that to get a sense of progression in this game currently appears to be impossible without paying. That is all.

As a semi-seasoned F2P player, hearing of a F2P player getting Thor, Ares, and OBW all past 10 covers in their first month would still astound me, even though I know that the new cover drops make 1*-2* progression generally much faster than what I experienced.

Our general point is this: you may think that relying on random drops is "impossible," but we pushed our rosters all the way to 3* without any fight-completion drops whatsoever. Some of us did it completely F2P. "A few 2* every once in a while" is still more than "literally zero 2*." Further, Iso is coming far more easily now than it did a couple months ago. Once you do start getting more good covers rolling in, you'll be rather Iso-starved, I expect. I know I am. Progression sometimes happens in fits and starts. You'll be back in the RNG's good graces at some point.

rkd80 wrote:

My plan is to max out Thor, Ares ad OBW. Use M. storm as support, since I do not see a huge benefit in C.Storm.

I really wish that I could somehow take the time I am willing to devote and channel it to something useful. But after putting in all this time, it just feels like spinning my wheels.

To put it bluntly: 21 days isn't much time. Your current progression is coming along quite well. Also, C.Storm is pretty awesome, especially in PVE. Raging Tempest can reactively wipe an entire enemy team all by itself if you eat a big AOE attack, and pound-for-pound, Wind Storm is probably one of the best direct-damage abilities in the entire game.

rkd80 wrote:

Just because some of you had it easier or harder does not invalidate my observations.
Again though, thanks for the feedback, I post on the public forum and deserve all the reactions, positive and negative.

Fair enough. But, we're pointing out that the conclusions you draw from your observations (e.g. "F2P is impossible") are based on an unrealistic expectation for progression speed.