New Feature - Champions 2.0 (Live with R287)

Bowgentle

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Crowl said:

@entrailbucket said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
They could reduce the cost of roster slots further.

Or they could, you know, make roster slots gasp free! There's no other game that penalises players for adding to their rosters like MPQ. I don't get penalised for catching as many Pokemon as I can in Arceus or Violet.

They'd have to find some other way to make money. They could probably do this if they didn't have to pay Marvel for the license, but I don't think the game would be as popular without these characters.

Outside of very early on, will that many people actually be spending money to get roster slots though or it it more likely that they earn enough to keep up with demand HP or are forced to sell covers when they can't do so. It seems more likely that those spending real money are doing so for offers/vaults that appeal to them and all that reducing/removing roster costs would do would be to encourage more regular spending elsewhere since they would no longer need to hoard a certain amount to ensure they had enough for their next batch of roster slots.

Only 3% of players have a character lvl450 or higher. The VAST majority of players in this game are what you describe as "very early on."

You'll roll this statistic out for the next 12 years, won't you.

It's SO useful though! The game does such a good job of hiding everyone from us (and hiding us from everyone) that people seriously think the entire playerbase is composed of us.

But the 3% is misleading.
It's, what was it, 10% of the people who stick around for more than 60 days?
That's a much more significant number I think.

It's still a minority. The one guy who was fighting with me on here months ago said it was like 80%!

Oh I agree it's a minority, but it's not quite so small as the 3% makes it out to be.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@KGB said:

@DAZ0273 said:
And it does matter how many dupes you have - that is entirely the point of the new system - don't have a dupe and want to ascend a character - buy a slot. This is all about slots - they could have easily implemented this without any need to have duplicates of the same character but they didn't. It is not hard to understand the path they chose of course and Devs gotta get that gold but it is a bit transparently obvious what this is looking to do. Nothing I can do but either suck it up or get killed by 4* Ares so it is what it is. Simples.

Unless you want to ascend a WHOLE bunch of characters in parallel, you won't need to buy a lot of slots.

For example lets say you want to Ascend 3* Iron Man. You buy 1 more slot and get 13 covers then ascend him to 4* level. At that point you free up a slot which you can then use to ascend say 3* Scarlet Witch. Once you get 13 covers of her, you ascend and move on to the next 3*.

The only time you'll need more than 1 more slot is when ascending multiple characters at a time (or if you ever wanted to take that 3* Iron man to 5* level in which case you will eventually need 2 maxed 4* versions of him but again, once he hits 5*, that 2nd max 4 slot frees up).

KGB

I think I read somewhere that you'll need something like 8 slots in total to get to 5* tier from 1*? Dunno. It is overly complicated and I will wait and see in practice if I decide to monkey around with it. It isn't something that is going to be bothering me come launch day, lol!

The point is I don't think the game needed to go this route. I completely understand why it is doing it but I don't have to like it.

I think all of us are spending WAY too much time worrying about taking 1* and 2* to 550, and not nearly enough time thinking about what 550 Polaris or America Chavez will look like. Those guys are significantly more achievable and (probably) significantly more useful.

They will look like nerfed judging on what the first post said I would expect. I saw a comment on Discord by Ice where he said they might need to nerf the entire 4* tier. He could of course have been joking.

GrimSkald

@meadowsweet said:
So I've probably screwed up my maths somewhere, but I was trying to work out how many total covers (or shard equivalents) it would take in order to level up a character all the way to 550:

5★: 113 covers
(straightforward: 13 covers to champ, 100 covers to max champ)

4★: 526 covers
(13+113=126 4★ Binding, 1x4x100=400 5★ Ascension)

3★: 952 covers
(2x13+2x113=252 3★ Bindings, 1x3x100=300 4★ Ascension, 1x4x100=400 5★ Ascension)

2★: 1,404 covers
(4x13+4x63=304 2★ Bindings, 2x2x100=400 3★ Ascensions, 1x3x100=300 4★ Ascension, 1x4x100=400 5★ Ascension)

1★ (3 Powers): 1,508 covers
(16x13=208 1★ Bindings, 4x1x50=200 2★ Ascensions, 2x2x100=400 3★ Ascensions, 1x3x100=300 4★ Ascension, 1x4x100=400 5★ Ascension)

1★ (2 Powers): 1,460 covers
(16x10=160 1★ Bindings, 4x1x50=200 2★ Ascensions, 2x2x100=400 3★ Ascensions, 1x3x100=300 4★ Ascension, 1x4x100=400 5★ Ascension)

[Legend: "4x1x50=200 2★ Ascensions" means you have to upgrade (4) characters at an 'exchange rate' of (1) cover per level through (50) total levels, at a cost of (200) covers.]

It is odd that the 'exchange rate' at the 5★ tier is 4 covers per 1 level, regardless of whether you're talking about a 4★ character or a 2★ character. Given how much more common 2★ covers are than 4★ covers (and the fact that they're divided amongst many fewer 2★ characters), a 2★ character will fly from level 450 to level 550 in a tiny fraction of the time that it will take the 4★ character.

Anyway, feel free to let me know what I got wrong!

Ok, this math is really interesting, and to give us all a little perspective I went and updated my spreadsheet which had some math artifacts left over from the early days so my pull counts were probably not accurate. So I've been playing since... I think around April or May the first year? I distinctly remember the first Anniversary, so I've definitely been playing for a while. I've never played at a super high level, but I play every day and typically get top 50-100 for PVE, and 10-25 for PVP (at least now.) My Season totals have largely been top 100, though lately I've hit top 25.

So here's what I got -

I stopped tracking 1★ s earlier this year because it's super tedious, but my totals are in the 2.5 to 4K range.

My total 2★ pulls over the course of 10 years are pretty tight - 3.25 to just over 4K. That's total over 10 years - so roughly three times what I would need to get a 2★ to 550, but that's assuming I've been hoarding for years.

My total 3★ pulls, not counting the recent releases, are in the 400-500 range, so less than what I'd need for a 550, and that's total over 10 years. By way of comparison, Arcade is at 123 so he'd be 4★ material already, but only if I didn't want to "double dip" on his rewards (not quite anyway,) and certainly a long, long way from 5* hood.

4★s are all over the place, of course, but I can tell you I've sold most my double max champs since they were characters like Captain Marvel, Peggy Carter, Goddess Thor, and Miles Morales (ouch!) back when Roster slots cost 3k. I believe I've hit 370 more than once on roughly 6-7 characters, so to be honest my highest 4★ , if this system had been in place from day one, would probably be in the 480-490 range.

So yeah, perspective. I think very few people will promote their 3★ to 5★ for some time, and the 4★ to 5★ pipeline will exist, but we won't see 550s for a really long time...

As people point out, it does mean Polaris will be up there, but hey, she has very few hit points at any level...

DrClever

@KGB said:
For example lets say you want to Ascend 3* Iron Man. You buy 1 more slot and get 13 covers then ascend him to 4* level. At that point you free up a slot which you can then use to ascend say 3* Scarlet Witch. Once you get 13 covers of her, you ascend and move on to the next 3*.

Unless you also want to have 3* Iron Man.

And I guess it's likely that one might want to ascend the most useful characters from each level which would probably mean retaining them at their original level.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Crowl said:

@entrailbucket said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
They could reduce the cost of roster slots further.

Or they could, you know, make roster slots gasp free! There's no other game that penalises players for adding to their rosters like MPQ. I don't get penalised for catching as many Pokemon as I can in Arceus or Violet.

They'd have to find some other way to make money. They could probably do this if they didn't have to pay Marvel for the license, but I don't think the game would be as popular without these characters.

Outside of very early on, will that many people actually be spending money to get roster slots though or it it more likely that they earn enough to keep up with demand HP or are forced to sell covers when they can't do so. It seems more likely that those spending real money are doing so for offers/vaults that appeal to them and all that reducing/removing roster costs would do would be to encourage more regular spending elsewhere since they would no longer need to hoard a certain amount to ensure they had enough for their next batch of roster slots.

Only 3% of players have a character lvl450 or higher. The VAST majority of players in this game are what you describe as "very early on."

You'll roll this statistic out for the next 12 years, won't you.

It's SO useful though! The game does such a good job of hiding everyone from us (and hiding us from everyone) that people seriously think the entire playerbase is composed of us.

But the 3% is misleading.
It's, what was it, 10% of the people who stick around for more than 60 days?
That's a much more significant number I think.

It's still a minority. The one guy who was fighting with me on here months ago said it was like 80%!

What if though that 3% increases to say 20% when you count actual active players who meet the Devs level of not being "casual" - as I said without context 3% is meaningless. If Bill Gates and I lose 3% of our income in a scam, Bill is gonna be much much more upset than I am believe me!

Bowgentle

Well they will have to step up their pace then.
With their tectonic shift schedule they will not be able to keep up with needed reworks.
Whoops,that could have used a quote.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Crowl said:

@entrailbucket said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
They could reduce the cost of roster slots further.

Or they could, you know, make roster slots gasp free! There's no other game that penalises players for adding to their rosters like MPQ. I don't get penalised for catching as many Pokemon as I can in Arceus or Violet.

They'd have to find some other way to make money. They could probably do this if they didn't have to pay Marvel for the license, but I don't think the game would be as popular without these characters.

Outside of very early on, will that many people actually be spending money to get roster slots though or it it more likely that they earn enough to keep up with demand HP or are forced to sell covers when they can't do so. It seems more likely that those spending real money are doing so for offers/vaults that appeal to them and all that reducing/removing roster costs would do would be to encourage more regular spending elsewhere since they would no longer need to hoard a certain amount to ensure they had enough for their next batch of roster slots.

Only 3% of players have a character lvl450 or higher. The VAST majority of players in this game are what you describe as "very early on."

You'll roll this statistic out for the next 12 years, won't you.

It's SO useful though! The game does such a good job of hiding everyone from us (and hiding us from everyone) that people seriously think the entire playerbase is composed of us.

But the 3% is misleading.
It's, what was it, 10% of the people who stick around for more than 60 days?
That's a much more significant number I think.

It's still a minority. The one guy who was fighting with me on here months ago said it was like 80%!

What if though that 3% increases to say 20% when you count actual active players who meet the Devs level of not being "casual" - as I said without context 3% is meaningless. If Bill Gates and I lose 3% of our income in a scam, Bill is gonna be much much more upset than I am believe me!

I mean, in this case it doesn't really matter? The other poster was saying they should give away free roster slots, because nobody spends money on them anyway. That's a "5* player" attitude -- lower level players absolutely spend money on roster slots, and whatever the percentage is, there are a lot more of them than there are of us.

MoosePrime

@DAZ0273 said:

I think I read somewhere that you'll need something like 8 slots in total to get to 5* tier from 1*? Dunno. It is overly complicated and I will wait and see in practice if I decide to monkey around with it. It isn't something that is going to be bothering me come launch day, lol!

You shouldn't need more than 5 slots.

1 - maxed 4* ascending to 5*
2 - maxed 3* ascending to 4* to consume to ascend the maxed 4*
3 - maxed 2* ascending to 3* to consume to ascend the maxed 3*
4 - maxed 1* ascending to 2* to consume to ascend the maxed 2*
5 - maxed 1* to consume to ascend the other maxed 1*

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Crowl said:

@entrailbucket said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
They could reduce the cost of roster slots further.

Or they could, you know, make roster slots gasp free! There's no other game that penalises players for adding to their rosters like MPQ. I don't get penalised for catching as many Pokemon as I can in Arceus or Violet.

They'd have to find some other way to make money. They could probably do this if they didn't have to pay Marvel for the license, but I don't think the game would be as popular without these characters.

Outside of very early on, will that many people actually be spending money to get roster slots though or it it more likely that they earn enough to keep up with demand HP or are forced to sell covers when they can't do so. It seems more likely that those spending real money are doing so for offers/vaults that appeal to them and all that reducing/removing roster costs would do would be to encourage more regular spending elsewhere since they would no longer need to hoard a certain amount to ensure they had enough for their next batch of roster slots.

Only 3% of players have a character lvl450 or higher. The VAST majority of players in this game are what you describe as "very early on."

You'll roll this statistic out for the next 12 years, won't you.

It's SO useful though! The game does such a good job of hiding everyone from us (and hiding us from everyone) that people seriously think the entire playerbase is composed of us.

But the 3% is misleading.
It's, what was it, 10% of the people who stick around for more than 60 days?
That's a much more significant number I think.

It's still a minority. The one guy who was fighting with me on here months ago said it was like 80%!

What if though that 3% increases to say 20% when you count actual active players who meet the Devs level of not being "casual" - as I said without context 3% is meaningless. If Bill Gates and I lose 3% of our income in a scam, Bill is gonna be much much more upset than I am believe me!

I mean, in this case it doesn't really matter? The other poster was saying they should give away free roster slots, because nobody spends money on them anyway. That's a "5* player" attitude -- lower level players absolutely spend money on roster slots, and whatever the percentage is, there are a lot more of them than there are of us.

But what if 90% of them don't stick around long enough to spend any money? We don't even know what 90% looks like in terms of actual people.

I am not at all doubting that lots of money is spent outside of the 5* tier - I have seen it in my own Alliance but without context percentages mean not very much.

What we can say is that the game was profitable enough to warrant it being purchased by new developers and the Marvel licence despite the MCU taking some big hits over the last two phases is still a hot property. So all good there.

Punter1

There's a lot of 4* in the game, and maybe a few are worthwhile having at 5* levels. Still makes most of them a farm for rewards. For those of us in the 3% and even smaller number of us with max 4*s, here's a view at rewards payout for ascending vs farming

Think general agreement is only ascending with 2x max levels - not a quick process, my highest dupe is 340. Maybe I need more classic pulls! Anyway, assumption is you have 2 max and have collected all the rewards along the way.

You ascend those 2 for a level 475 5*. Collecting on ascension day:
7 LT, 150 CP, 33k ISO and 1,500 HP

Now you somehow get 113 more covers (enough for max #3) in 5* rewards from 476 to 503 that is:
7 LT, 150 CP, 56k ISO and 1,500 HP
Total for your efforts - 14 LT, 300 CP, 89k ISO and 3k HP

Alternately you don't ascend and use those 113 covers to max #3 4* on a non-feeder
20LT, 500CP, (153k ISO) and 8k HP

So you are better off on everything but ISO since you spent the 378k to champ and didn't sell any 4*.

This ignores any guaranteed 5* that comes with feeder 4s and would improve the 4 rewards more.

I think the conversion rate should scale to encourage the ascension of the higher tiers - so 1* & 2* would be as is, but 3* should be 2x3* = 4* and 3x3* for 5*. Then 2x4* = 5*

DAZ0273

If 1* shards become a thing I wonder how they will slot them into the game economy.

KGB

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@KGB said:

@DAZ0273 said:
And it does matter how many dupes you have - that is entirely the point of the new system - don't have a dupe and want to ascend a character - buy a slot. This is all about slots - they could have easily implemented this without any need to have duplicates of the same character but they didn't. It is not hard to understand the path they chose of course and Devs gotta get that gold but it is a bit transparently obvious what this is looking to do. Nothing I can do but either suck it up or get killed by 4* Ares so it is what it is. Simples.

Unless you want to ascend a WHOLE bunch of characters in parallel, you won't need to buy a lot of slots.

For example lets say you want to Ascend 3* Iron Man. You buy 1 more slot and get 13 covers then ascend him to 4* level. At that point you free up a slot which you can then use to ascend say 3* Scarlet Witch. Once you get 13 covers of her, you ascend and move on to the next 3*.

The only time you'll need more than 1 more slot is when ascending multiple characters at a time (or if you ever wanted to take that 3* Iron man to 5* level in which case you will eventually need 2 maxed 4* versions of him but again, once he hits 5*, that 2nd max 4 slot frees up).

KGB

I think I read somewhere that you'll need something like 8 slots in total to get to 5* tier from 1*? Dunno. It is overly complicated and I will wait and see in practice if I decide to monkey around with it. It isn't something that is going to be bothering me come launch day, lol!

The point is I don't think the game needed to go this route. I completely understand why it is doing it but I don't have to like it.

I think all of us are spending WAY too much time worrying about taking 1* and 2* to 550, and not nearly enough time thinking about what 550 Polaris or America Chavez will look like. Those guys are significantly more achievable and (probably) significantly more useful.

They will look like nerfed judging on what the first post said I would expect. I saw a comment on Discord by Ice where he said they might need to nerf the entire 4* tier. He could of course have been joking.

He's probably not wrong given that 4* powers have always scaled much better than 5* powers in the Balance of Power PvP (everyone to 550).

That's a lot of dev time obviously but presumably they will do it as required (ie when each batch of new characters is available for ascension). Luckily it doesn't affect the 4* versions (or 3* or 2* etc).

KGB

DAZ0273

Yeah - whereas the "budget" on 5* goes a lot to their match damage, the budget on 4* is all about powers. So that could get out of control.

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@KGB said:

@DAZ0273 said:
And it does matter how many dupes you have - that is entirely the point of the new system - don't have a dupe and want to ascend a character - buy a slot. This is all about slots - they could have easily implemented this without any need to have duplicates of the same character but they didn't. It is not hard to understand the path they chose of course and Devs gotta get that gold but it is a bit transparently obvious what this is looking to do. Nothing I can do but either suck it up or get killed by 4* Ares so it is what it is. Simples.

Unless you want to ascend a WHOLE bunch of characters in parallel, you won't need to buy a lot of slots.

For example lets say you want to Ascend 3* Iron Man. You buy 1 more slot and get 13 covers then ascend him to 4* level. At that point you free up a slot which you can then use to ascend say 3* Scarlet Witch. Once you get 13 covers of her, you ascend and move on to the next 3*.

The only time you'll need more than 1 more slot is when ascending multiple characters at a time (or if you ever wanted to take that 3* Iron man to 5* level in which case you will eventually need 2 maxed 4* versions of him but again, once he hits 5*, that 2nd max 4 slot frees up).

KGB

I think I read somewhere that you'll need something like 8 slots in total to get to 5* tier from 1*? Dunno. It is overly complicated and I will wait and see in practice if I decide to monkey around with it. It isn't something that is going to be bothering me come launch day, lol!

The point is I don't think the game needed to go this route. I completely understand why it is doing it but I don't have to like it.

I think all of us are spending WAY too much time worrying about taking 1* and 2* to 550, and not nearly enough time thinking about what 550 Polaris or America Chavez will look like. Those guys are significantly more achievable and (probably) significantly more useful.

They will look like nerfed judging on what the first post said I would expect. I saw a comment on Discord by Ice where he said they might need to nerf the entire 4* tier. He could of course have been joking.

He's probably not wrong given that 4* powers have always scaled much better than 5* powers in the Balance of Power PvP (everyone to 550).

That's a lot of dev time obviously but presumably they will do it as required (ie when each batch of new characters is available for ascension). Luckily it doesn't affect the 4* versions (or 3* or 2* etc).

KGB

They did say in this thread that 550 5* Polaris will not be a 550-scaled 4* Polaris -- when you promote her, she'll have a different scaling factor.

Ultrace

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:
I think all of us are spending WAY too much time worrying about taking 1* and 2* to 550, and not nearly enough time thinking about what 550 Polaris or America Chavez will look like. Those guys are significantly more achievable and (probably) significantly more useful.

They will look like nerfed judging on what the first post said I would expect. I saw a comment on Discord by Ice where he said they might need to nerf the entire 4* tier. He could of course have been joking.

I think they said that each new rarity of the characters was created independently on the back end, so they wouldn't have to nerf the base tier, but the later tiers wouldn't be so broken. I hope they can carry it off correctly. A 550 Medusa/Polaris/Grocket team or Chavez/Shang Chi/Karnak won't be pleasant, and I'm sure others can come up with even less enjoyable combinations.

DAZ0273

@Ultrace said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:
I think all of us are spending WAY too much time worrying about taking 1* and 2* to 550, and not nearly enough time thinking about what 550 Polaris or America Chavez will look like. Those guys are significantly more achievable and (probably) significantly more useful.

They will look like nerfed judging on what the first post said I would expect. I saw a comment on Discord by Ice where he said they might need to nerf the entire 4* tier. He could of course have been joking.

I think they said that each new rarity of the characters was created independently on the back end, so they wouldn't have to nerf the base tier, but the later tiers wouldn't be so broken. I hope they can carry it off correctly. A 550 Medusa/Polaris/Grocket team or Chavez/Shang Chi/Karnak won't be pleasant, and I'm sure others can come up with even less enjoyable combinations.

Well Karnak is in the first batch so we don't have too long to find out as I am sure somebody out there will be able to ascend him on this dropping even if it is just to a lower level that 550. But yeah - some scary 4*. Doesn't exactly excite you about monster face Miles, does it?

ThaRoadWarrior

Alligator Loki starting invisible might be surprisingly annoying; there are also a lot of killer stuns in the 4* tier, so 4* Gamora ascended to 5* could prove quite effective, also 4* Iceman. Really most of the 4* tier seem better designed than the 5* tier does.

UakariCalvus85

To players who have already the rooster close to 300 pg, isn't this method too expensive? To buy a rooster space to put a 1* to ascend and then possible multiple copies of it for higher tiers is not worth it at 2000 hp per spot. Would it be possible to lower all new roster spot to 1000hp for above 300 pg spots?

Ultrace

@DAZ0273 said:
Well Karnak is in the first batch so we don't have too long to find out as I am sure somebody out there will be able to ascend him on this dropping even if it is just to a lower level that 550. But yeah - some scary 4*. Doesn't exactly excite you about monster face Miles, does it?

Nothing about Carnage Miles is exciting to me. Not one aspect. I would normally say that's a discussion for another forum, but it's relevant here too. With a 5* being released that I absolutely do not care about one bit, the notion of taking my 1* Spidey that's been in my roster for eight years all the way to 5* is pretty cool.

DAZ0273

If this drops Monday then I guess we need to worry about anybody in Class of 2022 and Class of 2023 on that list as they will also be boosted.