Reflections after being in 5* land for 6 months.

HoundofShadow

A few years ago, someone started a rumour in the forum stating that ascension system is coming to MPQ. I think that was in 2018.

The idea is that it will increase the cap of all champed characters by another 100. So, you will get better rewards and you don't have to spend your hp to roster another dupe. All champed character will  be upgraded to the next tier.

Have you been noticing more offers popping up for 5* shards and 4* shards?

For example:

Offer 1:
5000 iso-8
2000 hp
525 specific 5* shards
3 LTs

Offer 2:
5500 hp
3 CP to alliance
550 specific 5* shards
450 specific 4* shards
2 LTs

Offer 3:
8000 hp
5 CP to alliance
5* character costume
600 5* shards of that character
3 LTs

Offer 4:
60,000 iso-8
3400 HP
3 CP to alliance
525 specific 5* shards
425 specific 4* shards
2 covers of that 4*

HP is still their main source of income. Unless they shift their money-maker to other area, else the release schedule will keep running and casual player won't catch up. In order for them to catch up to 5*, something new must be created so that they have to catch up again.

Hopefully, there will be some livestream or podcast where the devs outline their plan for next year. They did it last year and hopefully, they do it again next month. Last year theme was about UI changes. I wonder what next year would be. Support? 6*? SCL 11? Ascension system? 

entrailbucket

I wouldn't expect any really big changes at this point.

The problem is that there's a relatively small group of very loud players who've somehow given themselves veto power over any changes that don't benefit them directly. 

For whatever reason, the devs are terrified of them now and won't do anything to upset them, which means a lot of changes are just not going to happen until the devs learn to ignore them.

Bad

Answering OP thread: this game is about continue progress. If you can keep up with the 5* release and champing all, 5* land it's really funny, and you can use 4*s to support your 5*s. There are quite a lot of 4*s who are great for that purpose.
To put it simply, playing in scl10 and gaining all cps possible on both pve and pvp will almost grant to champ all 5*s.
I've been playing since 3 years and a few months and I have 25 5*s, my best is apoc at 480. And I started playing pve scl10 since the start. That, for me, is moderate grinding.
There is a more advanced grinding and the rewards are a lot better: to be on a top alliance that will require for to be in a lot more grinding and other requisites.
I'm having a lot of fun with my play, exploring all characters, and sometimes taking my time for fun, but recently I'm short on time and I'm playing at fast pace: 25 m in firsts pve nodes, 45m on pvp total time(when I started playing pve scl10 was 1 hour and half and pvp only the first cps).
While I use to favorite the best 5*s, I think it's clearly more funny to champ all. Having your 2 meta characters mildly leveled grants a comportable play both on pve and pvp. The recent godboost support this way of play.
Personally I cannot play a game without supporting it(good news to fp2 who are playing for free a good amount of their life while the game could shut down without support)
Vip pass makes for a solid progress on the recovery health speed on characters and the bonus rewards on pve per day. There are offers and bundles to buy but unless wasting a huge amount of money, it cannot compare to solid grind and effective roster management.

The godboost introduces 6* characters: 5*s maxed. If you have a 5* maxed then you have your 6* for a week, your ascension for a week. How much of a power creep should have a 6* for to beat a 5* godboosted like if it was a meta 5* beating a boosted 4*? Do you see D3 developing that type of power creep in game in the way they are developing their characters? Because honestly I don't see them.
They could have implemented scl11 with the buffed 5*s and they didn't do it. Right now the player has a huge advantage over any pve type, even more with a character like SC. But it seems the whole playerbase is not so advanced and commited like the tops players grinding consistently, and also devs don't want to adress new content to them.
I would love to be wrong because I would love to fight level 750 foes with the tools I have, but in truth I think the game path will be to continue the same releases, funnys and interesting characters creating new synergies, and altough being a good work, there is nothing extra specially new.

HoundofShadow

They could simply make it that you either choose two 5* or 1 6* into battle. All 6* is immune to stun. I'm not sure if immune to airborne is a good idea because there isn't any 5* who can send enemy airborne.

TheRiddler

HoundofShadow said:

They could simply make it that you either choose two 5* or 1 6* into battle. All 6* is immune to stun. I'm not sure if immune to airborne is a good idea because there isn't any 5* who can send enemy airborne.

I used to play Avengers Alliance and they had some characters ( I believe Dr. Doom was one) that required 2 roster slots to take into battle. So I could see how that would work.

acescracked

entrailbucket said:

I wouldn't expect any really big changes at this point.

The problem is that there's a relatively small group of very loud players who've somehow given themselves veto power over any changes that don't benefit them directly. 

For whatever reason, the devs are terrified of them now and won't do anything to upset them, which means a lot of changes are just not going to happen until the devs learn to ignore them.

Ohh, that's kinda cool actually! Are you willing to give us some names of the players in this small group? Hopefully, the group has a cool name like the 'Illuminati of MPQ' or 'Secret Society of Line Users'! 

What was one of the changes they used their Veto power on? They veto things before they are released right... can't think of changes I've seen that benefit a small group directly.

I wonder what makes the developers terrified of the 'illuminati of MPQ'...maybe some of the illuminati have a mole in D3's Human Resources dept & dock the developers vacation days?

HoundofShadow

I heard great stuff about Avenger Alliance. Some other rpg games have similar conditions where you have two spaces for two regular monsters or two spaces for one monster which is more powerful. This concept isn't new and it could fit in MPQ 6* characters.

Bad

This is a game about synergy and it always will be because is a matching tiles game inside a board. 
If a 6* was filling 2 slots it would be less synergy. The 6* should need to have 4 powers and passives. On a pve or pvp with required characters the player couldn't play any other character than him. It would be funny?
Without caring if he fills 2 slots or 1, what about his stats?
Health should be no less than 300k. If he fills 2 slots more than 400k.
Match damage at least 4000 per strong tile color. 
He should have at least 4 powers with passives, for to actually bring to the table something new besides power creep. 
The % should be 1, and not shardgetable.
With all these elements, would players want to be on that boat?
And for what reason? Do players actually need that 6* character?
More importantly, do you see devs taking the risk and effort to take that step?

Sekilicious

If Apocalypse was a 6* 1/2Thor would be happy since the beefcake Apoc would probably even tank green over him. Sort of like SC tanks everything after two pink matches.  It would only be useful in Pick-3 though. Pick-2 it would be interesting to see if Apoc had enough self synergy to win battles. I would guess not since all his powers require matching tiles. 

entrailbucket

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

I wouldn't expect any really big changes at this point.

The problem is that there's a relatively small group of very loud players who've somehow given themselves veto power over any changes that don't benefit them directly. 

For whatever reason, the devs are terrified of them now and won't do anything to upset them, which means a lot of changes are just not going to happen until the devs learn to ignore them.

Ohh, that's kinda cool actually! Are you willing to give us some names of the players in this small group? Hopefully, the group has a cool name like the 'Illuminati of MPQ' or 'Secret Society of Line Users'! 

What was one of the changes they used their Veto power on? They veto things before they are released right... can't think of changes I've seen that benefit a small group directly.

I wonder what makes the developers terrified of the 'illuminati of MPQ'...maybe some of the illuminati have a mole in D3's Human Resources dept & dock the developers vacation days?

A conspiracy?  No.  And they certainly don't have veto power over changes before they get made (although they'd love it, they keep asking to be given this power "for the good of the game"). 

What they do is throw loud tantrums, review bomb, make threats, and generally cry until they get their way.  I'm not sure why the devs are afraid of them because they don't speak for anyone besides themselves, and certainly don't speak for the majority of players.

As for names, these are the people who only show up on the forum to complain about changes.  You can identify them by arguments about preventing changes for "the future of the game" or "to help new players."

Phumade

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

I wouldn't expect any really big changes at this point.

The problem is that there's a relatively small group of very loud players who've somehow given themselves veto power over any changes that don't benefit them directly. 

For whatever reason, the devs are terrified of them now and won't do anything to upset them, which means a lot of changes are just not going to happen until the devs learn to ignore them.

Ohh, that's kinda cool actually! Are you willing to give us some names of the players in this small group? Hopefully, the group has a cool name like the 'Illuminati of MPQ' or 'Secret Society of Line Users'! 

What was one of the changes they used their Veto power on? They veto things before they are released right... can't think of changes I've seen that benefit a small group directly.

I wonder what makes the developers terrified of the 'illuminati of MPQ'...maybe some of the illuminati have a mole in D3's Human Resources dept & dock the developers vacation days?

A conspiracy?  No.  And they certainly don't have veto power over changes before they get made (although they'd love it, they keep asking to be given this power "for the good of the game"). 

Hahah hahahahaha

they called it Play Testing Group

DAZ0273

I started a secret society once. It was back on the old Joe Quesada message boards in the sub forums that existed for David Mack and John Romita Jr. Except neither of them ever posted there so I created a thread called The Secret Society of Romita & Mack or SSORM for short. We didn’t really have a purpose apart from to exist in the sub forum. Everybody who posted in the thread got given a number and they put it in their signature. Before long, people, non-SSORM infidels, started asking what it meant but we of course were sworn to secrecy…although actually finding the forum sub brackets was hardly difficult. After a while, we got up to over 100 members but then somebody told David Mack and he came back to the forum and wiped us out! Fortunately, we still had the Romita Jr linked thread until JRjr also came back to the forum. We offered to make him our god and to post tribute once per week but he wasn’t interested and we were cast back out to the main General forum, our time in the sun ended.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was that if there is a secret society have we tried looking in the sub forums for the Clubhouse? You never know what is going on in sub forums (well OK, you do if you go and look).

entrailbucket

Phumade said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

I wouldn't expect any really big changes at this point.

The problem is that there's a relatively small group of very loud players who've somehow given themselves veto power over any changes that don't benefit them directly. 

For whatever reason, the devs are terrified of them now and won't do anything to upset them, which means a lot of changes are just not going to happen until the devs learn to ignore them.

Ohh, that's kinda cool actually! Are you willing to give us some names of the players in this small group? Hopefully, the group has a cool name like the 'Illuminati of MPQ' or 'Secret Society of Line Users'! 

What was one of the changes they used their Veto power on? They veto things before they are released right... can't think of changes I've seen that benefit a small group directly.

I wonder what makes the developers terrified of the 'illuminati of MPQ'...maybe some of the illuminati have a mole in D3's Human Resources dept & dock the developers vacation days?

A conspiracy?  No.  And they certainly don't have veto power over changes before they get made (although they'd love it, they keep asking to be given this power "for the good of the game"). 

Hahah hahahahaha

they called it Play Testing Group

I kind of wish they'd make this group and let all these players make decisions, just to see how fast they'd run the game into the ground.

StreetPreacher

It would be nice if there was more content where your 3 characters in the fight can't share a tier level. This would be a way to force you to use characters that haven't seen the light of day in ages.

HoundofShadow

I wonder why some players like to be forced by dev to use characters that they won't voluntarily want to use.  Can't you use them  in shield sim, puzzle gauntlet, non-timed story events voluntarily instead of waiting for the dev to force it on you?  This is one of the biggest mysteries to me: players suggesting the dev to force them to use characters they won't voluntarily use.

StreetPreacher

HoundofShadow said:

I wonder why some players like to be forced by dev to use characters that they won't voluntarily want to use.  Can't you use them  in shield sim, puzzle gauntlet, non-timed story events voluntarily instead of waiting for the dev to force it on you?  This is one of the biggest mysteries to me: players suggesting the dev to force them to use characters they won't voluntarily use.

I have 4 champed 5*'s, so those are the only characters I can use for any content at the moment. Use something else in shield sim? Yeah, right. That's funny. Puzzle Gauntlet? Which puzzle gauntlet are you playing? Mine is stuff like "destroy your enemy's shields to deal damage" against 3 enemies that don't create shields. Whole lotta room for creativity there. Non-timed story events? Well, I guess you're right about that one. I never thought of them as the one place to use a different team before, but I could. I don't know why it's a mystery to you. The game forces you to collect them all, and then only use the smallest fraction of them. DDQ required me to use Prowler today, and it was the first time I had ever used him. Never seen him as an opponent either.

Bad

On pve modes usually a 4* or 5*character is required. But to feature a 4* or 5* it's not the same as playing him or enjoy him, the requirement can be fulfilled with just 1 cover. It's simply a gacha requirement.
And if the player has a better, quick team will use it, because it's a more effective time management for achieving the same reward.

However there is a whole different game there, and a curated mode featuring some characters and/or loaning them while banning others could be a really funny experience for all players, and a legit excuse for achieving others rewards on a new mode.

Sekilicious

StreetPreacher said:

HoundofShadow said:

I wonder why some players like to be forced by dev to use characters that they won't voluntarily want to use.  Can't you use them  in shield sim, puzzle gauntlet, non-timed story events voluntarily instead of waiting for the dev to force it on you?  This is one of the biggest mysteries to me: players suggesting the dev to force them to use characters they won't voluntarily use.

I have 4 champed 5*'s, so those are the only characters I can use for any content at the moment. Use something else in shield sim? Yeah, right. That's funny. Puzzle Gauntlet? Which puzzle gauntlet are you playing? Mine is stuff like "destroy your enemy's shields to deal damage" against 3 enemies that don't create shields. Whole lotta room for creativity there. Non-timed story events? Well, I guess you're right about that one. I never thought of them as the one place to use a different team before, but I could. I don't know why it's a mystery to you. The game forces you to collect them all, and then only use the smallest fraction of them. DDQ required me to use Prowler today, and it was the first time I had ever used him. Never seen him as an opponent either.

Funny.  The Puzzle Gauntlet is exactly the type of content you are supposedly looking for, something you can’t power through with your three fastest characters. I’ve used Prowler numerous times in the PG. He shines in most of the fortified tile nodes. I’ve also only used Venom in the Protect node, though I’ve also force the opponents Luke Cage to spam protects with Shang-Chi and converted the board to black using 3* Iron Fist. Next time I will use Venom and Echo instead of SC and IF. Apparently you’re looking for more Pick-2 nodes, where the game tells you that ‘you need X to finish this’. But those tend to be widely derided here as well by players who don’t have those characters. 

HoundofShadow

I have about half the 5* champed and in shield sim, the number of unique 4* that I use is more than the number of 5* that I use. I even use 1*-3* to pair up with 5*. So, I can't see anything funny about using them in shield sim unless you are trying to hit 4000 points there.

As for characters being left unused, it's up to the players to find a use for them. Why wait for the dev to force you to use them? Think out of the box or explore the synergies of different characters if you want to use all of them. If you need someone to force you to do something like using unused characters, it simply means that you have no urge or desire to use them because it's not important and not necessary.

Sure, the game forces players who want to maximise reward gains to roster all characters but their pitch has been:

Create your own epic dream team using the strongest Heroes and the nastiest Villains from the Marvel Universe!

Collect and upgrade your favorite MARVEL Super Heroes and Super Villains and perfect your strategy!

Choose from over 230+ of your favorite Super Hero characters and Villains from X-Men, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and more! Whether you play Spider-Man alongside his arch-nemesis Venom or play Captain Marvel alongside her Ms. Marvel successor, Kamala Khan, YOU assemble your very own legendary troupe of MARVEL Comics Super Heroes!

The main pitch is playing with your own favourite team.

StreetPreacher

My unpopular idea was an off the cuff suggestion for something different. Can someone link me to popular suggestions for something different? I really think we need something different.