Upcoming Bonus Character Release (8/5/22)

DAZ0273

I plan to sell max champed 3s to roster new 3s instead of starting a dupe to begin with as the new 3s potentially have all sorts of new rewards covers and shards to earn. I have about 25k HP so am fine anyway but I am starting to creep towards 300 slots so this can delay that. I think the roster spot crisis is slightly being overblown but ways to earn extra HP will be needed for younger rosters probably.

Bowgentle

DAZ0273 said:

I plan to sell max champed 3s to roster new 3s instead of starting a dupe to begin with as the new 3s potentially have all sorts of new rewards covers and shards to earn. I have about 25k HP so am fine anyway but I am starting to creep towards 300 slots so this can delay that. I think the roster spot crisis is slightly being overblown but ways to earn extra HP will be needed for younger rosters probably.

What's worrying is that we haven't heard a peep about their planned "improvements" to alleviate the roster slot pressure, except that it's coming.
Hopefully it won't be an info dump on a Friday night, with the system going live on the Monday after that.

DAZ0273

Ha, yeah! I guess the communication has been pretty decent so far so I am optimistic. We could have got more warning on the Heroic event but I wonder if that was a decision made a bit on the fly.

ThaRoadWarrior

Wolvie171 said:

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.

Not really, I said in my original post the only dupes I keep are max champ 4*s because it took me years to get them and they actually do make a difference (mostly) in a PVP event. 2 and 3*s don’t, so I don’t hang on to them; they are just along for the ride on a required node. The ones I have that high aren’t me hoping they’ll become feeders, it’s ones who already are feeders that I parked my bonus and shard into until they got to 330-60 spitting out 5* covers. The highest organically leveled 4* I have is Lockjaw at 366, so it’s taken me since he was released (8/28/2017 according to his announcement thread, 5 years ago) when I was a 4* player to now for that to happen randomly.

Godzillafan67

Roster slotting isn't my issue -- I'm iso-poor. I have about 40 4*s still to champ, but I'm looking forward to the day that I'm focusing on my 5*s instead. 

dianetics

The 300 roster issue is not a problem until you have several max champed 4* or you are in the small minority of double champing 5*s.

The roster problem will become widespread soon though. We are looking at around 265 roster slots with max level 1*.

This time next year 300 will be a real issue for a lot of players.

nixed

dianetics said:

The 300 roster issue is not a problem until you have several max champed 4* or you are in the small minority of double champing 5*s.

The roster problem will become widespread soon though. We are looking at around 265 roster slots with max level 1*.

This time next year 300 will be a real issue for a lot of players.

It's surely by design. D3_Go was purchased by 505 Games. 505 Games also just published Puzzle Quest 3, and the monetization for PQ3 is like, heinously, egregiously, predatory compared to every previous PQ game.  

I'm not trying to bash the game devs themselves; I don't have any doubts that the devs here, any of DemiUrge or Broken Circle devs, are hard working, cool people with an awesome vision to make a great game and improve MPQ; but the devs and game designers are not really the ones that make the final decisions at the end of the day, usually the bean counters and suits do. The fact that we're increasing character cadence in the future is concerning. The fact that they're throwing in an extra character now amplifies this concern just a bit. 

Disclaimer: I am very into the game but not a very long term player (only have about five 4* chars champed, no five-star champs) and I am not yet post-HP or post-ISO, so these things likely affect me far more than the majority of people posting here.

ThaRoadWarrior

Publisher/IP holder is likely to set targets for the game to hit, how that happens is going to be up to the developer. I'm sure the economy designer is on staff at Broken Circle. At least I would hope they were embedded with the game development team. apropos of nothing.

Vhailorx

dianetics said:

The 300 roster issue is not a problem until you have several max champed 4* or you are in the small minority of double champing 5*s.

The roster problem will become widespread soon though. We are looking at around 265 roster slots with max level 1*.

This time next year 300 will be a real issue for a lot of players.

Fwiw I have zero dupe 5*s and only 1 dupe 4* (prof x from WAAAY back in the day). I just crossed the 300 slot threshold this summer and am about to start hitting 370 on my tip 4*s.

I probably have a top 10-15% roster, but the problem will only grow from here.

EienRyuu

Could someone please explain to me about the feeding thing? From what I understand, not all 5 stars are rewarded from 4* champion level rewards.

Ok, someone wrote on the previous page that there are 128 4's and 72 5's. Can't devs... just assign one to each like 1:1 and voila! - you will have every 5 covered. xD Hell, you will be even left with some that can't be assigned.
Or did the old devs did that so not every 4 star feeds 5s? If that is the case, I see what is the discussion for...

You will excuse me, I'm kinda a new player (getting to almost 2 years) so I have no idea how it was before.

As for slots, I have 20 000 HP saved but I'm still getting covers from 3* like I think about 8 are about to reach 183 to give me a cover. xD And I'm above 100 so 1000 per slot. That's 8000 for me.
And not to mention the uncovered 4 stars. I have 58 in my roster (3 champed, the others are some covered like 1/1/1 or 2/2/2, etc.), 70 are left. So this makes 70k for all of them. xD
Why I have such a low amount? Well, it's just that I don't play the high levels of PVE and PVP. Since on PVE nodes require a specific 4* which most of the time I don't have, I don't play on like 7, 8, etc. level. I go for like 3 or 4. Plus it helps me with real time that I can clear the nodes very quickly and have some time left. xD
As for PVP I go for 7 although I am given the the option to play in 9. But as I said I'm nowhere near ready for it yet. xD

HoundofShadow

In order to understand it, you need to understand the timeline of 5* and feeders.

The first 5* was created in September 2015.
Champed rewards was introduced in Jan 2016. 
Champed rewards for 5* was introduced in Nov/Dec 2017.

Back then, the the ex-dev begun by starting with 3 feeders for 5*. Then, it was one feeder every month or so. Over time, the frequency reduced. The ex-dev said in one of the interviews that they felt they are releasing 5* too quickly. Back then, most feeders were older 5* and veterans were able to double dip (getting LT and 5* cover). 

In December 2019, the ex-dev introduced shards to the game and updated feeders for most 5*. I can't remember the exact number of 5* not getting fed. However, the ex-dev was expecting certain tradeoffs and things didn't go well and MPQ got review bombed into smithereen. The dev caved in the end and reimburse the remaining shards but they stopped updating feeders for 5* for a few months after that travesty before using new release 4* to feed 5*.

As for the dev not making every 4* feeds every 5* immediately, it depends on what point of view you are looking from. The dev job is to balance the game economy so that the game won't be too easy to progress quickly. On the other hand, players think the dev is stingy. The new dev wanted to avoid that terrible history in December 2019, so they are figuring out how to make most 5* get fed. 

ThaRoadWarrior

To elaborate just a tad - “double dipping” in that context means that for the first few years of 4* characters having their rewards updated to include 5* covers, when that happened you would get a full cover at 280, 300, 320, 340, 350, 360. If you had a 4* who was at level 300, they would retroactively gift you those covers from level 280 and 300 for instance. The reason everyone got angry during the shard rollout is because you didn’t get a 1:1 amount of shards for characters who were already feeders before. This was a real let down if you had a character at say 299 when that change rolled out, because you only got 100 shards instead of 250, and level 300 wouldn’t give you a full cover. I got burned on Rogue/Gambit this way, but a lot of players felt they should have given out the whole amount of shards in the same way covers used to be.

Vhailorx

Yes, by the far most important takeaway from the preceding 2 posts is that early 5* feeders were done retroactively, ie a 4* was converted to become a feeder after having already been in the game for some time.

This change required the devs to choose whether to retroactively give out 5* covers to everyone that already had the converted 4* leveled up to 280.  They decided to do so (but they did not give out rewards for any previously sold max-champ 4*s, which is part of why everyone says never sell a 4* 270).

That was very nice of the former dev, and made players happy. But it also set a precedent that burned them later (which shardmas 1.0) and also led to a very slow roll out of 5* feeders. Which is how we ended up where we are today.

shardwick

EienRyuu said:

Could someone please explain to me about the feeding thing? From what I understand, not all 5 stars are rewarded from 4* champion level rewards.

Ok, someone wrote on the previous page that there are 128 4's and 72 5's. Can't devs... just assign one to each like 1:1 and voila! - you will have every 5 covered. xD Hell, you will be even left with some that can't be assigned.
Or did the old devs did that so not every 4 star feeds 5s? If that is the case, I see what is the discussion for...

You will excuse me, I'm kinda a new player (getting to almost 2 years) so I have no idea how it was before.

As for slots, I have 20 000 HP saved but I'm still getting covers from 3* like I think about 8 are about to reach 183 to give me a cover. xD And I'm above 100 so 1000 per slot. That's 8000 for me.
And not to mention the uncovered 4 stars. I have 58 in my roster (3 champed, the others are some covered like 1/1/1 or 2/2/2, etc.), 70 are left. So this makes 70k for all of them. xD
Why I have such a low amount? Well, it's just that I don't play the high levels of PVE and PVP. Since on PVE nodes require a specific 4* which most of the time I don't have, I don't play on like 7, 8, etc. level. I go for like 3 or 4. Plus it helps me with real time that I can clear the nodes very quickly and have some time left. xD
As for PVP I go for 7 although I am given the the option to play in 9. But as I said I'm nowhere near ready for it yet. xD

If you have Rocket/Groot, Polaris and Juggs then I would at least jump up to level 6 in pve. Every node, save for when 3* Rocket/Groot is essential, can be beaten with Polaris and Rocket. And for events where you have the essential 5* character I would jump up to level 7. For pvp you're going to be fighting the same people whether you play on 7 or 9 so you might as well go up to 9 so you can get better rewards.

Chipster22

EienRyuu said:

As for PVP I go for 7 although I am given the the option to play in 9. But as I said I'm nowhere near ready for it yet. xD

You might as well choose 9.  Your roster determines the opponents you are matched with not the level chosen.  The level chosen only changes the rewards for which you are playing.

This is one of the most counterintuitive things in the game.

EienRyuu

shardwick said:

EienRyuu said:

If you have Rocket/Groot, Polaris and Juggs then I would at least jump up to level 6 in pve. Every node, save for when 3* Rocket/Groot is essential, can be beaten with Polaris and Rocket. And for events where you have the essential 5* character I would jump up to level 7. For pvp you're going to be fighting the same people whether you play on 7 or 9 so you might as well go up to 9 so you can get better rewards.

First - sorry for replying late but I was out of the city so yeah, no access to a PC. xD
Anyway, sadly only Polaris is what I have. xD Just got 4* Rock/Groot so he is on 1 cover. Also no Juggs at all. Therefore your theory (while thank you for it) is not applicable. Yet.
Besides, even if I go for 6, when I don't have the required 4* I won't get those points which will leave me behind on both progression and placement rewards, wouldn't it? You do know that when you choose the time for an event to start, you can actually see who is required, right? Just go to "Event Rewards" when choosing the time and select "Event Rules". On it where it says "Powered up: This Event" is the 5 star, 4 star, 3 star and 2 star that will be for that event.
That's why I check whether I will have the needed characters and so on. Thus I don't go for 6 or 7 if you understand me. xD

As for PVP - I will test that theory though I do believe levels are there for a reason. For example, right now in 7 I meet players with boosted characters like not champed but still with the boost having like 80k health.... I have to skip most of the time to find someone on 1 cover which I can beat. xD Or I have been hit by someone having Grocket and Polaris or Medusa and Polaris (another nasty combo) or using other boosted 4* that have like 30-40k health. So I think that the frequency of having that will slightly increase in 9 at the very least. In 7 I can place to at least under 50 or if I really try under 25 so I am cool with that.
Thank you though! Good luck out there! 

Akoni

What would be the pros and cons of releasing a character on a six-week rotating schedule? For example, a 3* release the 1st week, a 4* release two weeks later, and a 5* release two weeks after that. I know that those who farm can empty a slot every two weeks for a new release. Though this rotation would ease the demand on slots for focused players (i.e. 3* or 4* players), it would still put a strain on farmers. Very active players can earn enough HP roughly every two weeks to buy another roster slot. For others, it would be difficult to earn enough HP in game to do so on a regular basis. The only other obvious negative I can think of is waiting a bit longer before the next 5* release. How much of an issue would that be for 5* players? I'm still in that 4*-5* transition as a casual player so I'm not the right one to speak on that. 

Bowgentle

The point is, they WANT to speed up the release schedule.
Players keeping up isn't their goal.

HoundofShadow

3*/4* players wanted new 3* for a long time and this feedback is common. How do you explain that? Those accounts were set up by the dev?

Bowgentle

Nobody asked for 3s IN ADDITION to the existing 2 characters per month.