Upcoming Bonus Character Release (8/5/22)

Bowgentle

ThaRoadWarrior said:

For sure - I think at the heart of the retroactive feeder debate is the idea that it takes a LONG time to grow a 4* either from new release or even baby champ, so it felt good to have your time investment in a retroactive feeder conversion pay off. For instance when I was still chasing my first 5*, it was in the pre-shard bonus hero days, and I spent about 10 months chasing America Chavez up to 360 to finish Jessica Jones. That was one character being actively force fed to chase another character. It took so long to feed my way to a finished character that I'd actually champed 2 other 5*s in the meantime. Once you're in the 5* game, with very few exceptions 4* characters only exist to be reward factories that push your 5* roster up. So sure, add more feeders so at least they get fed eventually. I am still curious if the dev team would truly want to immediately catch up to new releases though, since it would mean that at some point you will have newly released 4*s feeding characters currently in latest.

I'm expecting a delay of 3 months, so that characters stay unfed while they're in Latest.

ThaRoadWarrior

I also expect you'd want some delay, since it seems like a known feeder release would reduce the FOMO latest legends chase at least some amount.

Bowgentle

Yep, that. Beancounters probably sweating enough as it is with the two covers from boss events.

ThaRoadWarrior

Well, I’ve yet to get a second cover from a boss event. Our alliance has only ever finished a boss event one time during Sinister 6 that basically gives double points.

Bad

KGB said:

That's essentially all that's happening. We are paying 2K to get a 5* feeder. Given how players constantly ask for feeders for the unfed 5* you'd think there would be a lineup around the block to pay 2K because that's VASTLY cheaper than buying out one of the limited vaults for 500 shards given you can earn up to 6 covers for a max champed 4.

KGB

P.S. I expect the newly released 3* will dual feed 4*s in order to start catching up on the crazy number of unfed 4*.

There is another category, although possibly for 5* players, and it's because of these 4* being really good: a 4* character who really helps on PvE.
For me, Gorr and his repeaters have a lot more value than him feeding onslaught, because Gorr is a character who I usually play now, and if I continue playing him he will see more play than onslaught for me.
Hulking is a really good character for playing it with a special tiles buffer. For some people the character and his toolkit will have more value than him feeding SW.
Of course both feeding meta characters just multiply their value, but it wasn't necessary because of my first point.

Blackstone

I'm excited that it's Monday, the day we get more info on this character. Mainly so we can hopefully get this thread back on track. 

I'll vote Fantomex or Zemo, but only because I've been waiting for them for a while, and the other guesses don't appeal to me as much as they do some others. (no hate, just preference and Wish lists)

TriSentinel

WilliamK1983 said:

I wonder if it's one of the characters that lost out to Black Knight in the contest from January of this year?  

Yes, I am still holding out for a time-travelling Deathlok to land in MPQ. 
Also, Lady-Stiltman.

liminal_lad

Seeing who the new character is makes me think my guess was right: I think this character had to be released to meet contractual obligations with Marvel 

Yepyep

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Yepyep said:

BriMan2222 said:

Yepyep said:

KGB said:

<snip>

I imagine these extra characters are the way they are going to catch up on feeders. If that's the case, then for all those complaining, Shardmas is what's caused this to have to happen since they don't want another retro reward debacle.

<snip>

KGB

How was it a debacle? I thought it was great...

It was great only after they gave us full rewards. They didn't intend to.  They only gave like 1/3 of the rewards at first. 

It was only after huge back lash of players bombarding them with negative comments on the forum and face book and review bombing the game in the app store and stopping any spending they did on the game that they gave us full retro rewards.

They've never updated feeders since then.  So players have inferredfrom this that don't want to give us full rewards for retro feeders but also know the fans will riot if they update feeders and don't give 100 percent of the retro rewards.

Wow, @KGB and @BriMan2222 I'm not at all trying to challenge you. But I have no memories of any of this controversy over Shard+(Christ)mas, i.e. the raining down of gifts of shards that one day. It was all 100% seamless for me and right on the day it dropped.

I wonder if it (the debacle) might not have been just platform hiccups and players terrified of being left behind -- whether justified or not. And yo! I'm no apologist for the devs on this forum... But seriously, it was a good thing and things have been mostly good since then. It was a welcome recalibration of power (maybe less so for the 550 club, because there's nowhere to go north of GOD).

Is there a concise history of this debacle memorialized anywhere, please?

The shardmas “debacle” came about when shards were worked into champ rewards all over, and rather than keep with the tradition that had long been in place of giving players all the updated rewards 1:1, for some reason it was decided that if your character who was already a feeder was past level 280 you would only get a flat 100 shards regardless of how many historical covers you would have earned under the old retroactive reward system. I believe newly minted feeders gave out 1:1.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/80703/r192-champion-rewards-updates

when people talk about “Shardmas 2.0” they are referring to the “fix” when all the shards people expected they would have gotten were paid out after the aforementioned review bombing, complaints everywhere, presumably actual spend stops, etc, and that was the last time a character was retroactively made into a feeder. Since then we have seen sporadic and arbitrary characters launching as feeders to older 5s which I think is fine and frankly should have been the way it was done always (minus the arbitrary part - it feels way better to be able to predict based on lore which character will feed another). 

This is helpful; thanks for writing it.

Vhailorx

DarthDeVo said:

nixed said:

IceIX said:

To assist with the distribution of this sudden character windfall, we’ll be giving away a copy of this bonus character, pro bono. 

What does this mean exactly? You're giving us an extra 1k HP to go with the character? Or an extra roster slot for everyone?

Or are you guys just throwing a few extra covers at us and saying it's a "free" character? Because if it's just covers, then saying you're "giving it away for free" seems a little duplicitous, no? Like I understand that most of the MPQ forum users are likely 5+ year players who are already post-HP, but the vast majority of players are not yet Post-HP. Sudden extra characters, and the trend of knowing there are new 3-stars coming in addition to 4's and 5's is a bit concerning.

I'd kill to have my roster slots only cost 1K HP again. No, once you're past 300, each slot is 2K a pop. 

It's not really all that hard to get at least one cover for a new 4*, so forgive me if some "free" cover(s) isn't exactly doing much for me. If you're handing out a free roster slot to roster said "free" bonus character, that's a different story. 

But I see this and all I can really think is, "Great, gonna have to cough up an extra 2K HP now."

Very much this. I don't mind surprise character releases at all, i DO mind surprise HP costs, and giving us free covers makes the HP crunch worse because they will expire.

Virus

HoundofShadow said:

The latest 4* preview doesn't look like She-Hulk. There isn't any tile destruction at all, which is typical of all the Hulks in-game.

She-Hulk releases on August 17 and this means the bonus 4* is related to She-Hulk because it's the closest date to her TV show and the fact that they are giving away free cover for this bonus 4* character kind of strengthen the argument. Anyway, the new 4* ability is interesting.

You were wrong….again. 

Bad

Virus said:

HoundofShadow said:

The latest 4* preview doesn't look like She-Hulk. There isn't any tile destruction at all, which is typical of all the Hulks in-game.

She-Hulk releases on August 17 and this means the bonus 4* is related to She-Hulk because it's the closest date to her TV show and the fact that they are giving away free cover for this bonus 4* character kind of strengthen the argument. Anyway, the new 4* ability is interesting.

You were wrong….again. 

Not like you.
You weren't wrong because you didn't try to guess nothing.

HoundofShadow

The only time I want to be right in the forum is when monthly contest is held. The past few monthly contests have been giving away R5 supports.    

With this Spidey reveal, the bonus 4* got to be She-Hulk related. I think the dev gave free Gorr cover or some other character cover during Thor's movie release.  

Anyway, I look forward to the next clue.

Timemachinego

KGB said:

Here's the other thing no one's considered. How many players would pay 2K in hero points to turn a 4* into a feeder? I bet a LOT of players would be happy to pay 2K to turn character X into a 5* feeder (no retro rewards, just straight turn a 4* into a feeder).

That's essentially all that's happening. We are paying 2K to get a 5* feeder. Given how players constantly ask for feeders for the unfed 5* you'd think there would be a lineup around the block to pay 2K because that's VASTLY cheaper than buying out one of the limited vaults for 500 shards given you can earn up to 6 covers for a max champed 4.

KGB

P.S. I expect the newly released 3* will dual feed 4*s in order to start catching up on the crazy number of unfed 4*.

Not to set the world on fire again, but beyond the straight 2k fee for a bonus character, we have to look at how it fits into the other current reward structures... like new character rotation, etc.

If we're only getting a new character that isn't part of the new character rotation then they aren't much better than a limited character since leveling them to any appreciable point will require them being made a favorite. If they do become part of the rotation, then every latest character in their "bonus" cycle will get less covers overall and again get less of a benefit from being new in the first place. We've seen this with at least a few funky rotations that ended with Mantis and Morbius getting fewer covers than they "should have", unless of course we bring up the issue and try to find a way around that by getting out in front of it.

For all of the knights vs whatever, I'm an active player and supporter of this game just like you. I do not think the world is made up only of roses and will readily point out a stink when I smell one. We're both supporting this game in our own way, we're going to butt heads when you want to sing praises and I want to say "yes, but...." and that's fine imo. A good world makes use of both of us.

ThaRoadWarrior

Probably worth pointing out again it's only a 2k price for those above 300 slots, but I would wager that is a very small segment of the population today. that being said, the game is getting pretty close to 300 unique characters as it is, so the 1 of everybody crowd will get there sooner than later. Right now including Chasm, Spider Glider, Bonus 4*, and 1*s there are 270 unique characters available I think? I just have a single 1* for ddq and 5 4* duplicates because their originals have hit max champ and it took me 2300 days to have that happen or whatever it's been. So we're less than a year away from there being 300 characters in game at the new 3 characters per month (assuming no further bonuses) release schedule once simultaneous 3/5s begin.

Bad

There is a fact which I usually never read about it on the forum: 
A 3* dupe gives 650 HP on rewards.
A 4* dupe gives 3350 HP on rewards. 
So a 3* dupe can make it for his slot giving LL, heroic tokens CP 4* covers or iso(if someone wants to have 3*dupes "in case of...")
But a maxed 4* dupe totally pays any HP cost type.
And just leveling 4*s pay slots for more characters, and playing PvE and pvp makes for shield hopping and a beautiful HP positive account.
At least it usually happens to me.
Edit: I forgot selling a 3* dupe gives 500 and a 4* gives 1000 extra HP.

Wolvie171

ThaRoadWarrior said:
that being said, the game is getting pretty close to 300 unique characters as it is, so the 1 of everybody crowd will get there sooner than later. Right now including Chasm, Spider Glider, Bonus 4*, and 1*s there are 270 unique characters available I think? I just have a single 1* for ddq and 5 4* duplicates because their originals have hit max champ and it took me 2300 days to have that happen or whatever it's been. So we're less than a year away from there being 300 characters in game at the new 3 characters per month (assuming no further bonuses) release schedule once simultaneous 3/5s begin.

The game currently has 269 unique characters, including the bonus 4*:

1*: 8
2*: 14
3*: 47
4*: 128
5*: 72

Players will hit the 300-mark in 11 months or less once the 3 characters per month (4* + 3*/5* co-release) becomes the release schedule going forward. If players keep a single 1* only for DDQ, that provides another buffer of approximately 2 months before the 2k HP tax kicks in.

In reality, many players will also have a 2*, 3*, or 4* farm which they use to harvest the champion rewards for additional in-game resources. This method is very common because it generates the income needed to grow player rosters and advance to the next tier in the game. So for this group of players, the 300-mark comes much sooner & many are already feeling the pressure from the higher tax.

ThaRoadWarrior

I don’t keep dupes of 2*s, I flip them as soon as they hit max champ. You definitely done need to keep dupes for those to work right if you are playing the high SCLs because they aren’t required for anything. Same with 3*s. They don’t add anything even to PVP at high levels, they are just node access keys. I realize many people do, I’m merely saying you super don’t HAVE to.

Wolvie171

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I don’t keep dupes of 2*s, I flip them as soon as they hit max champ. You definitely done need to keep dupes for those to work right if you are playing the high SCLs because they aren’t required for anything. Same with 3*s. They don’t add anything even to PVP at high levels, they are just node access keys. I realize many people do, I’m merely saying you super don’t HAVE to.

You left out 4*'s, of which most players, albeit a smaller cross-section of the playerbase, will keep a dupe. When it takes literally years to max champ a 4*, compounded further by the increasing dilution, players aren't likely to sell them off. And as we've seen in the game, 4* featured events have become more prevalent so it behooves everyone to keep their investment, even at the risk of breaking the 300 wall.

HoundofShadow

Players who kept duplicate 4* have benefited from gaining rewards twice or even thrice and also gaining 5* covers and shards during Shardmas. It's not like there was zero benefit gained from doing that. All those 5* shards/LTs gained alone is worth than 2000 HP paid.