Roster level question

entrailbucket

At least a few of them are here, though, and they're telling us what their goals are. It appears that they use this strategy because they believe some things that may have once been true, but aren't really true anymore. Correcting those assumptions is important -- maybe not for them, but perhaps for other players who'll read this on the official forum.

Bowgentle

It's especially weird reading how God boosts may get some to finally stop softcapping - after how long? Over a year of God boosts, two years maybe?
Like, wasn't that enough time to reach a decision?

entrailbucket

Some people still think the 5* boosts in PvP are temporary/will go away.

Bowgentle

Well sure.
Eventually MPQ will go away too, so everything is temporary.

Scofie

Personally, I think it's been a really interesting discussion. There's the fear of jumping off the softcapping cliff and it ruining enjoyment of the game forever and those that jumped a while ago and wouldn't want to do it any other way. A great resource for those still with that choice to make!

Bowgentle

I have several rather less flattering descriptions than jumping off a cliff, but I'll keep them out of here 🤣

Phumade

@entrailbucket said:
I think they want players to use those boosted 5*, though. Remember, they make their money on roster slots. The 5* release pace has been really high for a long time, and they've actually increased those rewards.

They need to make sure newer players buy a slot for every new 5*, and a really good way to do that is to make single-covered 5* better than every other character.

This is a really powerful insight. If I was optimizing as a true day 1, I would definitely build a roster strategy that emphases 3-4 cover 5s. Realistically a new player on vip could realistically get 1-3 5 covers per char per LL duration. A 3 cover 5* is probably better than a champed 3 and a favorite againsted unchamped 4*.

Instead of the old process of building through the tiers, a new player would build with undercovered 5* and then make their roster building decisions on grow 4* farms, what chars to chase etc...

I do think this is a good approach for onboarding new players. There is no real reason to force people to grow a 2*, then 3*, then 4* roster before battling experienced players.

entrailbucket

As someone who was pretty hostile to softcappers when they were winning everything, their statements in this thread have changed my mind quite a bit. Assuming they're not exaggerating, there really doesn't appear to be any advantage at all to doing this now.

I'm no stranger to pursuing non-optimal strategies, and I strongly feel that players should play MPQ in whatever way is most fun for them. But I'm well aware of all the advantages and disadvantages to doing what I do vs what everyone else does, and I've made an informed choice to be suboptimal. I'm not sure the softcappers are totally clear on the pros and cons of their strategy in today's MPQ.

fractalvisions

@Daredevil217 said:
Yeah if you’re using Echo/Namora aren’t you a target and prone to losing points anyway? I’m very confused.

If you don’t want to lose points, use faster characters or better defensive characters (meta). If you don’t care about points, then you can use whoever you want, but EB’s point is you can likely do that anyway.

Even with my current MMR, I occasionally come across champed 5s. These are very difficult to beat with whoever I want. I like a challenge, but I want to actually have a chance of winning. Am I really mistaken in thinking that if I champed my 5s, I'd mostly be seeing other champed 5s? If I'm not mistaken, EB is a 550 player so doesn't have recent experience of life as a 450 player. Whereas, I had the impression that my view was backed up by the original post as well as your previous response. The constant complaints about the latest meta from those in 5* land also seem to confirm this view.

entrailbucket

The latest meta is pretty prevalent for me, up to a point, because there are no other 550 players who have anything resembling a diverse roster. If you counted up all instances of 550 characters on all rosters across the entire game, probably half of them are Okoye, and half of the remainder are Chasm. I don't think that's the case among 450 players, especially post-5*-boosts. Daredevil has indicated that there's a lot more diversity in that group.

The other thing is that it's only true up to a point. Depending on what else is going on in my slice at my start time (I play s2 in the last 2 hours of every event), I might see a wall of 550 meta teams, boosted mid level 5*, or completely random nonsense like Polaris teams, AC, or unchamped 3* Kang.

The game will always try to match me with players of similar strength at a similar point level, but if there are none of those players available, it has to give me someone to fight. This is why you guys see fights that you find confusing -- there aren't enough players like you left. The game has to show you something, so it does the best it can.

dianetics

@Phumade said:
This is a really powerful insight. If I was optimizing as a true day 1, I would definitely build a roster strategy that emphases 3-4 cover 5s. Realistically a new player on vip could realistically get 1-3 5 covers per char per LL duration. A 3 cover 5* is probably better than a champed 3 and a favorite againsted unchamped 4*.

It’s not insightful and it’s not realistic either. From a business marketing standpoint it is understandable.

From a player perspective it is not. Players aren’t riding through the tiers. Now it is get the 1 1* Spidey/jugs. Build your 2s. Get a decent set of 3s and try to skip the 4* tier.

I did it last year and the grind up is still entirely too painful. The level balancing is broken and new clearance levels open to quickly to accommodate lower rosters.
New players will be lost because there are no tutorials or guidance.

The devs want people to open their rosters up, but they haven’t made any meaningful changes to the low to mid tier experience.

Their actions show they want people out of the 1-3* tiers quickly but they are not rewarding that progression currently.

If you are a new player you want 1 1* a full set of 2s and 3-5 strong 3s. Then skip the 4s. The 4 roster is too fast and wide to fill it out quickly. Skip it and fill it out later.

entrailbucket

I don't think they expect (or, really, want) most players to be that serious about the game. Most players will never champion a 5*, and they play regularly, have fun, and spend a few bucks anyway. This is fundamentally a casual mobile game, with some depth that's present if you want it/search it out.

Look at random players' rosters in your brackets, or join a public alliance. The number of champions on most rosters, of any star level, is very low. 5* characters are so good because they're meant to be that good, because they're meant to sell slots.

DrClever

@dianetics said:
If you are a new player you want 1 1* a full set of 2s and 3-5 strong 3s. Then skip the 4s. The 4 roster is too fast and wide to fill it out quickly. Skip it and fill it out later.

I'm in that position on my alt account and I more or less agree.

For one thing there's enough freebies from celebrations and themed vaults that you can't hold on to the principle of building from the bottom ams letting nothing wither on the vine - at some point you end up with a 5* cover and no slots, something has to give and it would be insane to reject (in my case) 5* Emma Frost's red just so that you can keep 3* Vision around.

Once you've made that move you find that playing with that 5* (unlevelled) is more productive than anything else and even a trivial number of shards for a new power is more attractive than a Talos cover.

I'm still hoarding CP and LL tokens but I'm not sure that the optimal approach won't be to open these when there's a strong LL trio and (roster then) sell a bunch of 4* covers.

That feels like it might be a quicker way to level the 4* essentials and whatever feeders you need.

The roster can be backfilled from better PvE rewards down the road.

There's some future point where someone sticking strictly to the orthodox route overtakes this roster but I think it will be less fun in the meantime.

DAZ0273

I asked the Devs a while back about 4* champing costs which are much too high and they said they have plans around the iso economy in game. No idea what that means but if it means cheaper champing costs throughout the tiers that will be a big help in deciding who is worth rostering and how many 4's you can afford to be building.

entrailbucket

They have to be a little careful with that sort of stuff. Games like this are about the journey, not the destination. They work because you're always chasing something -- when actually you reach that thing it's generally pretty disappointing.

Iso is how they keep people's progress slow, generally. That's the reason iso is so expensive to buy -- they don't want you to shortcut your progress too much.

They could probably do with giving out a bit more iso at this point, but they will never increase the rates so much that it stops being a choke point. It's a choke point by design and it serves a very important purpose.

dianetics

They do need to adjust iso in some respect. Not in a large manner, but now we have 1 3-4-5 each month with no increase in general rewards. This will slow down roster growth as a whole.
At this point it almost feels like the whole game economy needs a rebalance. Many things are tightly connected higher tier rewards and higher clearance levels, while others are completely disconnected such as red iso and supports.

Bowgentle

Well they're working on that.
Don't expect the ISO faucet to open up too much, though.
It's still possible to be post ISO by playing a lot, so speeding up the road to post-ISO - ness is a two-edged sword, like bucket said.

entrailbucket

Obviously I can't say for sure, but I would expect that "how fast are players progressing" is one thing (and maybe THE one thing) that has a ton of metrics support on their side, and is monitored very, very closely. Things like Chasm's impact on high-end PvP are probably not often on their radar, and justifiably so. Stuff that affects the new player experience is incredibly important to their business and it's likely they know exactly what's happening there at all times.

DAZ0273

On another Q&A I asked whether the generosity with 5* covers by BCS was part of a plan to get more players to enter the 5* endgame and they said that was definitely part of the plan (although not the only reason).