3*s incubate for 9-10 covers. I am sad.

Unknown

Heh. Yes, yes, selection bias and all that. I think that's okay, though. I'm not saying every complaint leads to a game-shaking problem that must be addressed at top priority, of course; they just prove that a problem exists, even if it's minor.

I don't think this particular problem is minor. Shrug. Or rather, I think there's an opportunity here to increase MPQ's appeal in a way that doesn't decrease it in other ways. In case it's not clear, part of what I'm going for here is that "one more turn" sense that a lot of people rave about in games like Civilization. It seems to come from numerous incremental improvements that keep you energized and wanting to keep playing. If you're seeing visible progress in your Black Panther or your GSBW that has an immediate effect on your capacity for playing one more game, I think that's good. Right now, getting that first 3* cover feels like hitting the last gas station before Death Valley. Sure, Vegas will feel absolutely spectacular, but will you want to make the trip knowing what comes before?

Naturally, I could be wrong. Your biggest concern seems to be that your maxed Patch will feel like just another 2* if you're able to play him steadily up like this. I think that's legit. It's why I'd make the requirements for getting covers this way to be pretty steep. I merely want the road to be 50 miles long instead of 400. D3 devs seem to have the data necessary to know whether this is worthwhile.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Mehhh wrote:

What if I'm not the only one staring at all his 1-8-cover 3*s, wishing he could play one just to get away from the maxed-2* grind, but knowing he can't without shooting his tourney progression in the foot unless that tourney artificially forces that one 3* on him?

You're not, by a long shot. That's the typical 2*-3* transition. I think I spent about two months in that transition, and I didn't use any of my 3*s until they were L102.

I think there are currently two problems with the 2*->3* transition. First, the overall transition takes much longer today than it did a few months ago. This is largely due to the *much* larger 3* character pool, which means that it takes many more individual 3* covers before you are likely to have a single functional 3* character. I like the increased character pool as much as the next person--it goes a long way towards keeping the meta from getting too stagnant--but I'd like to see some offsetting mechanism that gives the player some small ability to focus covers, even if it's only "I'm much more likely to get covers in this half of the 3* pool rather than that half."

Second, over the majority of my transition period, I've picked up the overwhelming majority of my 3* covers from placement and progression awards, not token drops. Nothing against placement/progression, or for that matter, against competing for a defined, non-random prize, but one downside is that the bulk of my roster development in terms of covers received is dependent on how the devs schedule prizes, which also has a roster-homogenizing effect across the playerbase. For example, we've had maybe one or two 3* Spidey covers available as rewards over the past couple of months, both as difficult-to-reach progression rewards. That means unless you were getting a really unlikely level of clustering in your token drops, building that character was not a viable option without spending rather a lot of money on covers.

In short, I'd like to see a small amount of player control in getting 3* covers to offset the larger character pool, and I'd like a bit more of a tilt towards random 3* covers than defined rewards *without* decreasing the *number* of 3* covers awarded.

noobprime

Vairelome wrote:

In short, I'd like to see a small amount of player control in getting 3* covers to offset the larger character pool, and I'd like a bit more of a tilt towards random 3* covers than defined rewards *without* decreasing the *number* of 3* covers awarded.

They already have implemented the 'player control' in tokens and how hard you grind for events, the problem is that progression is painfully slow thanks to the percentages.

Vairelome wrote:

That means unless you were getting a really unlikely level of clustering in your token drops, building that character was not a viable option without spending rather a lot of money on covers.

Sadly this is by design and 'working as intended'. Believe it or not, they do want people to spend a lot of money on covers .

DD-The-Mighty

HailMary wrote:

Mehhh wrote:

If getting that 3* to 100 is so great, why all the complaints about the 2*-3* transition? Why isn't everyone saying "this transition is a PITA but wow, is that new 3* worth it, so in the end I'm satisfied with MPQ"?

Satisfication is overwhelmingly passive, and some people just need to vent. I, for one, love my 141s.

Mehhh wrote:

What if I'm not the only one staring at all his 1-8-cover 3*s, wishing he could play one just to get away from the maxed-2* grind, but knowing he can't without shooting his tourney progression in the foot unless that tourney artificially forces that one 3* on him?

You're not, by a long shot. That's the typical 2*-3* transition. I think I spent about two months in that transition, and I didn't use any of my 3*s until they were L102.

Deadpan wrote:

Really, once you get to 3* level, most don't stop to say "Wow, I've finally made it, this is awesome!" even though it is. They just start complaining about new 3* problems like how everyone is 141 and why do these 2* teams keep beating me and wow my shield was down for 3 minutes but i got beaten 5 times for 150 points. There's no satisfying people, which is how D3 makes its money.

This.

And then there are the people who come to the forums to complain about the people complaining in the forums....

Unknown

Deadpan wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

Since the Elder Scrolls style of levelling skills by simply using them is my favourite system, I love the idea of getting 'XP' through the use of skills.
Would need to be very well implemented though - if nothing prevents me from going into shield sim to suicide my squad over and over again while using Sentry's yellow to get another cover, well, I know what I'll do in bed for an hour every night.

While I love Elder Scrolls as much as the next guy, this would cut into D3's monetization of the game as well. No matter how it's implemented, the result would be people doing exactly what you say and just going into the Sim and suiciding over and over again until they get their levels up. Sales for HP to buy covers is a big part of how D3 makes their money, so taking that away would be bad.

Plus it seems like it would just add another progress bar that we would have to worry about, complicating a game of which one of it's most brilliant features is simplicity.

Unless they just made it so you had to win to "level up?" They already do this with pretty much everything (PVE points, rewards, dailies)... not sure why you wouldn't expect them to do it here.

Unknown

Yeah I agree. I have like 4-7 covers for most of the 3* characters and I can never ever use them in pvp (or even PVE) unless theyre buffed/featured. A low level tourney would be really cool and increase diversity rather than just having to fight ares/obw every match

BearVenger

I, too, like the idea of an up-and-comers tournament. I have thirteen 3* characters who are under level 80; most of them are maxed to their covers. I'd love a tournament, even if once a month, that encourages me to take them out of the mothballs.

I respect Deadpan's point of view, but I don't think a tournament like this would encourage people to pinch their HP purchases. There are too many events that demand your top 3. Even if this were a weekly event, I'd still focus all my resources on my moneymakers -OR- I'd start pouring more ISO into my neglected characters that I currently don't pull out of the toybox.

I think running a Junior Avengers tourney at the same time as a NHB event would give less experienced players an outlet and more experienced folks a chance to test new combinations. And since they're all using the same pool of health packs, well, there's some opportunity for monetization.