Rolling 1*, 2*, and/or 3* tiers into single tier

Glockoma
Glockoma Posts: 555 Critical Contributor
in MPQ General Discussion

Back in 2020, the game was pretty stale and not much hope on the horizon.

I saw a post recently, (I forget the user, sorry), that alluded to this notion and it reminded me of a post I presented formerly. Link below and some interesting compromises noted within.

Thoughts on viability or even the need anymore?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/83211/idea-for-renewing-life-into-the-game-combining-character-star-ranks

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Comments

  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,656 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    Clearly the game needs to work on new player retention. The devs need to facilitate newer players progressing more quickly.
    I alluded to this in the last developer qa.
    The early game has been essentially unbalanced for years.
    Since the game is so mature it should not take 1-2 years for players to reach the higher tiers.
    I created a new account last year and it took me 6 months to get to the 3* tier with no spending. My projection was about 12 months for the first 4* champ.
    That is clearly too slow for new players.

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    If it took you six months to hit 3* tier, you must be playing only DDQ and nothing else. I was already hitting 3* land after 2 months in Jan 2018 and my main is 100% F2P. I think you need to give more context. In reddit, there are players hitting single champed 5* within a year.

    Anyway, by doing that, it's only giving Dev the opportunity to create 6*. On top of that, they need to restructure the entire rewards (including login bonus) and monetisation in the game. They might as well create a new game. Regardless, gacha game like this about daily play or spending to catch up. At the end of the day, doing this will bring us back to 2014, where 4* was the king. In modern context, 6* will be the 4* of 2014 if we condense 1* to 3* tier.

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards

    New players need to use milestone points and go directly into 5* land with a good 5* (possibly SC), no 4* will help them that players being there for more time already have boosted and champed.
    This is what I did exactly 4 years ago without regrets and it's what I would repeat if I was starting now.
    Determination is what will make them possibly progress.
    And I started with one of the worst 5s available, so there is little excuse here.
    Now boss events are really generous and if not SC, a good new 5     could help them.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,287 Chairperson of the Boards

    It was me that mentioned rolling the 1 and 2* tiers into the 3* tier.

    I still think it makes a ton of sense to do it. At the very least, roll the 1* tier into the 2* tier and see how that goes for a few months since players won't remain in 1* land longer than a week or so at most while they complete the prologue.

    KGB

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards

    Currently, these are our tokens in game:

    Standard: 1*, 2*, 3*
    Elite: 2*, 3*
    Heroic: 2*, 3*, 4*
    Mighty: 3*, 4*
    CP token: 4*, 5*

    If you roll 1* and 2* into 3* tier, it will affect the entire pull structure. We would end up with only 3 tiers. I don't know how the game looks like (what tokens there were) when there were only 3 tiers. By removing 2 tiers, we are simply moving back into 2013/2014. Doing this is simply satisfying some sort of psychological discomfort. The dev is going to add 6* and 7* into the game to make sure that the strucure is intact. We'll be back to square one again. What's the point?

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    No change is for a few months.
    On that thread from 4 years ago the first answer is perfectly logical and I agree 100%.
    I will add some points more.
    I suppose 1* and 2* characters should be rebalanced to be 3*. How would you explain 3 BW versions on 3?
    Devs are releasing new 3    s. Rolling 2* and 3* into 3* would make 3* tier too bloated.
    And finally, how many gacha games exist forfeiting their common cards? And where is the benefit?
    Edit: last one but lnot less important: rebalancing 1* and 2* into 3* will increase a lot the difficulty on pve nodes. I'd love it but possibly a 90% of the playerbase, not much.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,287 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Bad said:
    No change is for a few months.
    On that thread from 4 years ago the first answer is perfectly logical and I agree 100%.
    I will add some points more.
    I suppose 1* and 2* characters should be rebalanced to be 3*. How would you explain 3 BW versions on 3?
    Devs are releasing new 3    s. Rolling 2* and 3* into 3* would make 3* tier too bloated.
    And finally, how many gacha games exist forfeiting their common cards? And where is the benefit?
    Edit: last one but lnot less important: rebalancing 1* and 2* into 3* will increase a lot the difficulty on pve nodes. I'd love it but possibly a 90% of the playerbase, not much.

    We have 2 Captain America's at the 5* level and no one questions it. Technically we have 2 Spiderman's too (BSSM, Peter Parker) etc. I don't think anyone cares if we have duplicate characters at the same tier.

    If we put the 1 and 2* into the 3* tier it will still be smaller than the current 5* tier so I don't think that would be too bloated.

    KGB

  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    I’m on board for deleting the 1 and 2* (other than Bag Man of course) and rolling Standard and Elite tokens together. I’m sure the campaign would still be doable being populated by undercovered 3*s. I will miss the 100 iso I get from the random PvP rewards though, and farming hp will be much harder given it relies on a small number of easily cycled characters.

    I don’t expect it to happen of course. I’m fine with that as well.

  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,471 Chairperson of the Boards

    2* cap and Thor are nearly identical to their 3* counterparts, moving them up would be useless. I don’t think moving 1 and 2 up to 3* has any value I can see, and as mentioned it makes farming champ rewards (arguably the entire point of 2* tier) much less effective.

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards

    @KGB said:

    @Bad said:

    We have 2 Captain America's at the 5* level and no one questions it. Technically we have 2 Spiderman's too (BSSM, Peter Parker) etc. I don't think anyone cares if we have duplicate characters at the same tier.

    If we put the 1 and 2* into the 3* tier it will still be smaller than the current 5* tier so I don't think that would be too bloated.

    KGB

    Actually those were my most trivial points.
    Now I'm curious to read how will you explain to the playerbase that they are going to fight an improved version, more damage and better powers, of the DA in almost all pves.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,287 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Bad said:
    Now I'm curious to read how will you explain to the playerbase that they are going to fight an improved version, more damage and better powers, of the DA in almost all pves.

    I don't understand what you mean.

    We always fight improved DA in every PvE or at least anyone fighting above CL5. That's because the DA are boosted to the CL level. Just moving them from 2* to 3* doesn't change their stats unless the Devs would also re-work their damage/health etc.

    KGB

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards

    @KGB said:

    I don't understand what you mean.

    We always fight improved DA in every PvE or at least anyone fighting above CL5. That's because the DA are boosted to the CL level. Just moving them from 2* to 3* doesn't change their stats unless the Devs would also re-work their damage/health etc.

    KGB

    So, rolling 1* and 2* is also purely nominative, according to that their damage and a rebalance to their powers won't happen and just they will be the A/B/C tier on the 3* tier, or in other words, the worsts characters on 3* tier.
    Then what's the whole point on this?

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    Let's think this rationally:

    If they merge 1* with 2*, they have to remove standard tokens from the game as well. Then, all Standard Tokens will be replaced with Elite tokens. 2* tier will then have 22 or 21 characters. In order to move to 3* land, players have to champ 21 2* instead of 13 (minus Bagman). Sure, you've 8 more 2* to feed 3*. Your 2* farm might churn faster due to guaranteed 2*. i think we get about 8 Standard tokens a day? Your 3* farm might move a little faster. I don't think the dev is going to do permanent mass upgrade to rewards like replacing Heroic with Mighty, and Mighty with Classic tokens.

    Then, if we merge 1*, 2* and 3* together, the only tokens left in the game is Mighty Token and CP tokens. Then, we have to remove all elite, standard, heroic and revamp the entire HP store. You might argue they could create a token that gives 3*, 4* and 5*. Do people really think the dev is going to make getting 5* a small effort? Players are going to start leaving in big numbers because there are zero challenge to covering 5* characters.

    I think this is an interesting thought though. Someone might want to ask this question in the next Q&A.

    Again, there are already players who can move to 5* land in a year. Do we really want leechers in the game who don't even do full progression and expect to hit 3* or 4* land within 6 months?

  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,656 Chairperson of the Boards

    @HoundofShadow said:
    If it took you six months to hit 3* tier, you must be playing only DDQ and nothing else. I was already hitting 3* land after 2 months in Jan 2018 and my main is 100% F2P. I think you need to give more context. In reddit, there are players hitting single champed 5* within a year.

    Anyway, by doing that, it's only giving Dev the opportunity to create 6*. On top of that, they need to restructure the entire rewards (including login bonus) and monetisation in the game. They might as well create a new game. Regardless, gacha game like this about daily play or spending to catch up. At the end of the day, doing this will bring us back to 2014, where 4* was the king. In modern context, 6* will be the 4* of 2014 if we condense 1* to 3* tier.

    I'll be specific then. My first 3* champ was at 6 months, and I had 4 covers for 1 4*.
    And as I mentioned I was not spending at all on the account.
    I hoarded all tokens when I did not have open roster slots. Accumulating enough HP to open roster slots at the low clearance levels takes a while. If I was spending to address the roster slot bottle neck it would have been faster.
    Completely fresh, 6 months 1 3* champed and a couple more in the following weeks. 1 1*, all 2's, maybe a dozen 3's, and 2 4's.
    My roster would not support doing only DDQ, because I would only be able to hit the 1     and 2*.

    PvP for these lower level accounts is absolutely broken. When you have a roster of 1 and 2 stars matchmaking is broken, because there are not enough other accounts in that range. I would constantly be matched up against roster with rosters I could not compete with. My highest character was 167, but I would often be matched up against teams with 1 high level 3* and a champed 4*.

    The biggest issue is the clearance level does not scale with roster well. You gain shield ranks quickly and open clearance levels that are beyond your rosters ability to handle. There is no clear indication of what you should be choosing based on your roster, and if you choose something too high you might not be able to clear the pve.

  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    @dianetics said:

    The biggest issue is the clearance level does not scale with roster well. You gain shield ranks quickly and open clearance levels that are beyond your rosters ability to handle. There is no clear indication of what you should be choosing based on your roster, and if you choose something too high you might not be able to clear the pve.

    I personally think this is intentional and seems to be present in a lot of F2P games I have played lately. It is to create the perception that the player is falling behind which helps provides the FOMO that drives some to spending. Getting a few more HP for $ provides the roster spots that allows you to use your resources rather than hoard. The best resource if you don’t want to spend is the New Player guide on Reddit. Following that optimally lets new players reach the 5* tier in a year without dropping a dime. There is a reason that most games require third-party guides from veteran players in order to understand how they can progress without spending though.

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    Your answer is still pretty vague. Do you play pve to full progression, if possible, or do you play a few nodes and call it a day? Do you skip pvp entirely? When I first started playing in 2017, I've already champed all 3* after 8 months and I'm 100% F2P. And here in 2022, you champed your first 3* after six months. Something is very wrong with your progress. Other players have hit multiple 4* champed or hit even 5* land within a year. It seems that you are playing really really casually on your second account. To champ your first 3* after 6 months is very slow and we are talking about progress in 2022.

  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards

    @HoundofShadow said:
    To champ your first 3* after 6 months is very slow and we are talking about progress in 2022.

    We aren’t talking about 2022 though. Dianetics is a 5* player that probably started around the same time you did by my estimate. I started in 2015 and even then if you didn’t know what you were doing (I didn’t, still don’t maybe) you could easily hurt your progress by months. There have been more resources to make up for suboptimal play lately.

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2022

    Dianetics said he created a second account last year and it took him 6 months to champ his first 3*. I just saw a post in roster progress update where a new F2P player who played for 179 days in February 2022 has already championed 38 3* and 1 4*. His progress and Dianetic are world apart. Dianetic said he expects to champ his first 4* somewhere on the 12th month. 6 months before February put us somewhere in August 2021. When he was playing around day 100, he has already gotten 9 3* champed. It doesn't look like the new player is confusing champed and rostered.

  • JasonLikesToTravel
    JasonLikesToTravel Posts: 35 Just Dropped In

    @HoundofShadow said:
    Dianetics said he created a second account last year and it took him 6 months to champ his first 3*. I just saw a post in roster progress update where a new F2P player who played for 179 days in February 2022 has already championed 38 3* and 1 4*. His progress and Dianetic are world apart. Dianetic said he expects to champ his first 4* somewhere on the 12th month. 6 months before February put us somewhere in August 2021. When he was playing around day 100, he has already gotten 9 3* champed. It doesn't look like the new player is confusing champed and rostered.

    That was myself and as you worked out, I started playing in August 2021. First time with the game so not a returning player with experience of what to do early on.

    There's definitely a bit of trial and error early on. It's easy to spend HP on stuff like heroic packs to improve your roster when you don't anticipate how scarce those HP points are going to be further down the line. You then might roster a 4* that doesn't actually help you in any way that early in the game.

    There are certainly things I'd do differently if I was starting over now and I was perhaps fortunate to join / read the forum relatively early (Oct 2021) to help my progress. I do think the rewards are fair for new players though and you certainly can progress quick once you have a better grip on what you're doing (roster management, farming 2*s, hoarding tokens, alliances, favouriting / targeting certain characters etc etc).

    I think rather than overhauling the reward / tier system the one thing that would benefit new players is some form of tutorial / link within the game that offers advice on how to progress quicker. I think the longer you're overlooking forums such as this, Reddit, Youtube or whatever the longer you're at a disadvantage over other players.

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