A newb's guide to the MPQ Galaxy (Update 21/8)

Skrofa · July 2017

There are a lot of things in this game that to some might be old news but to others are new and interesting tid bits. so I figured that a place to keep a lot of nice and interesting info about the game was sort of needed.

Now, I am not talking about pvp/pve guides and stuff like that, but more like the minute details that can help you improve your game style / strategies, while minimising the money spent on the game.

Some are facts, some are opinions. Do with them what you like!

Fetch your towel!

Or a pillow or something soft just in case you need to throw your phone because of the Board Drop or Death or the Cascade of Doom.

Know your passives!

Let's say you've got Scarlet Witch, Green Goblin and Hulk (The Awesome one) for whatever reason in your team. Beginning of turn, Switch and Chulk drop CD tiles and GG needs to fortify one of them. If their positions in your select screen are Left - Switch, Center - Green Goblin and Right - Hulk, then this is what happens:

1. GG looks for CD tiles. Doesn't find any and moves on.

2. Switch places hers.

3. Chulk places his.

If you don't care about which tile GG will fortify just place him to the right, so he will activate his passive last.

Same principle applies to all characters with passives. the middle one goes first, then left, then right.

Know your enemies!

Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

(A small sidenote here. I am not really certain about this but I have a slight suspicion that the goon further back in line might be the one who activates his powers first.
OR
it might be level based. More tests to follow and clear this up)

Passives don't trigger passives

Every time there is a PVE with goons with passives we have this talk so I figured I would put it here as well.

Goons like HAMMER Sniper have passive powers (Deadly Shot). Now, when these guys drop their CD tile, since it is a passive, Dr Strange will NOT flambe their face, neither will Luke Cage drop a defence tile since no power was actually activated.

Self-inflicted take-down and Thanos

You are fighting Daken or Ares or Juggs or any other character that can choose the coward's way out of the fight.. Daken's lack of blue tiles downs him. Ares used Sunder and downed himself. Juggs used Headbutt and downed himself. None of these events will allow Thanos Court Death since the power states "When YOU down an enemy".

What tha...? Why am I back to the main screen?

So, you were "happily" grinding pve or climbing in pvp. Everything is going great when suddenly you finish a fight and you find yourself in the main screen, either STORY or VERSUS. Why does this happen you say? Well, this can only mean one thing.

A new event has just begun.

This new event can either be DDQ, the new PVE event, the new PVP event or even Lightning Rounds.

Token Screens

Normally, the default token screen is the Heroics one. Then why are you taken to different screens most of the time?

Well, if you have just finished a DDQ node and click on the Tokens button, then you will be taken to the DDQ vault. It's the same thing with every other event page/vault.

Hoarding tokens

It is possible to hoard vault tokens of a pve event and then use them the next time it comes around.

HOWEVER!

Take Venom Bomb as an example (since we all love this one).

Let's assume you play throughout the event and you accumulate 20 tokens. There is nothing good in your vault and decide to hoard them. If the next time Venom Bomb comes around it is for a new character release, there will not be a vault for you to cash your tokens. So, you'll need to wait some more for a normal occurence.

Play at your level

Once you start the game you are supposed to spend SOME time in 1* land, MORE time in 2* land and EVEN MORE time in 3* land. Getting 4* and 5* characters might seem great at first but then your pve and pvp experience might change for the worst since your enemies are based on your highest level characters (mostly).

So, if you are just starting out, save your CP, save your Latest Legends Tokens. They will do you no good!
(That being said, some changes are underway that might make this word of caution obsolete, but until that day comes, BEWARE!)

Farming is GOOD (maybe)

2*s come pouring down on you all the time. You might choose to just sell those covers once you have a 2* champ. However, farming them DOES pay off, IF you have the extra coins for slots or even ISO to use on them. What most farmers do is:
1. max champ a 2*.
2. wait till a lot of the same character's covers accumulate
3. sell and rebuild

OR, the dupe approach.
1. max champ
2. open new slot and start a dupe

Be stingy

Coins might be better spent on slots instead of tokens. Especially when you are early in the game and they are not so easily handed out to you. You will need to get all the characters you can get your hands on so you can compete in or even complete pve events for some more juicy rewards.

Rotation

If you are running out of slots/coins, you can simply rotate your essentials if you so wish.
Have one slot reserved for that Essential character that you will need for the next pve event.

Example:
You have just earned a cover for Ragnarok from Venom Bomb.
He is essential for DP vs MPQ.
Roster him, play through DP vs MPQ.
You have now earned IM40 who will be essential for Strange Sights.
If you don't have the space or coins to open up a new slot for him, sell rags, roster IM40. This way, you will always have the essential to play through the event and you will eventually get the coins to stop doing it.

Use the loaners

Don't be discouraged by the level 100 enemies in the Story missions with a yellow/orange circle around them even if your highest level character is 15. You will be able to borrow the essential characters for that mission (only) and it will be a fair fight (or not, in your favor).

Know what to expect

Enemies fire their powers (assuming they have the AP) in a predictable order. Yellow, Red, Blue, Green, Purple Black, Team-Up. They will only fire up to a single power in each color each turn, and they won't move backwards in the order even if they get more AP in a power of a previously skipped color (from Overdrive or Gamma Siphon or whatever).That's more trivia than anything, but it's sometimes handy.

Fortify vs Locked

Fortified tiles can still be removed, converted, or stolen, unlike locked tiles. The fortification only prevents the tile from being destroyed or matched.

Also... Take the scenario of Invisible Woman vs Medusa.
Medusa will create a CD tile at the beginning of the turn if one does not exist.
If Invisible Woman locks her CD tile, at the beginning of the turn Medusa will look at the board and go "Well, no CD tile there, I shall create one!"
So... She creates one and now you have got two CD tiles, a locked / inactive one and the brand new active one. if the lock gets matched away, you will have two CD tiles damaging you at the end of each turn until one is expired/matched away.

Also also... Take the scenario of 4* Luke Cage PLUS Medusa.
If Luke fortifies her CD tile it means that when you first match it, 2 attack tiles will be created and the CD tile will remain. If matched again, 2 more attack tiles will spawn and the CD tile will be removed. (it's a relatively new change that was introduced with 5* Doc Ock.)

Know Your Enemy II

Read the boss abilities!! And I don't just mean the tiles, I mean, go in and read the abilities. There's a really good reason Kaecillius doesn't take any damage, and no, it's not a bug.

Team-Ups

If you send a team-up from a championed character, the power will always be sent at 5 covers. So you don't have to re-spec your champion to send a 5-cover team up, and, there's no way to send a 3-cover team up from a championed character, even if you want to (Fastball Special, Pistol, Aggressive Recon, etc...)

Also... Don't be afraid to use/scrap the weak team-ups that the AI enemies give you. Your alliance mates will definitely have something better to send you and you can actually request specific ones whichever suits you best. There is a nice discussion on this, here https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/66265/who-gives-the-best-team-ups

Preview Power Ranks

Your character is not yet champed and you want to know what their powers do at higher ranks?
zodiac339 I have learned that you can preview the power's rank! Just click on the circle you want to know about and voilà! All the info on what the power does at desired rank at your character's current level!

I cannot think of any more right now but if you guys have more, I'll just keep adding them here whenever I have the time.

TPF Alexis · July 2017

Skrofa said:

(A small sidenote here. I am not really certain about this but I have a slight suspicion that the goon further back in line might be the one who activates his powers first.)

In my experience, it seems to be semi-random. It's usually the one further back, but not always.

Dormammu · July 2017

The best thing any new player should understand is MMR (PvP) and scaling (PvE). I've seen waaaaaay too many new players in the 1-star and 2-star periods rostering (and leveling!) 5-star characters they lucked into with tokens and legendary CP purchases.

For any new player reading this: the enemies you face in either PvP or PvE is based on some unfathomable equation of your highest level characters. (Someone smarter than me can spell it out better).

So do yourselves a favor and hoard your CP and Legendary tokens until you have some champed 3-stars. Don't dump ISO into leveling your under-covered 4-stars or (even worse) 5-stars because doing so will make the game far more challenging than it should be. They may look appealing and strong, but it's the wrong move.

Champ a team of 1-stars. Use them to start getting 2-stars. Champ a team of those (hell, max-champ them all!). Use those to start getting 3-stars. Champ all of them you have the roster space for. Use them to start max-covering your 4-stars and champing those... etc etc

Skrofa · July 2017

OJSP said:

I think it depends on their levels first before their positions

I hadn't actually considered that, I will test it first chance I get and edit that point!

Dormammu said:

The best thing any new player should understand is MMR (PvP) and scaling (PvE). I've seen waaaaaay too many new players in the 1-star and 2-star periods rostering (and leveling!) 5-star characters they lucked into with tokens and legendary CP purchases.

For any new player reading this: the enemies you face in either PvP or PvE is based on some unfathomable equation of your highest level characters. (Someone smarter than me can spell it out better).

So do yourselves a favor and hoard your CP and Legendary tokens until you have some champed 3-stars. Don't dump ISO into leveling your under-covered 4-stars or (even worse) 5-stars because doing so will make the game far more challenging than it should be. They may look appealing and strong, but it's the wrong move.

Champ a team of 1-stars. Use them to start getting 2-stars. Champ a team of those (hell, max-champ them all!). Use those to start getting 3-stars. Champ all of them you have the roster space for. Use them to start max-covering your 4-stars and champing those... etc etc

Damn quote box! Oh well, I'll summarise this and put it in the OP as well!

Alfje17 · August 2017

Dormammu said:

Champ a team of 1-stars. Use them to start getting 2-stars. Champ a team of those (hell, max-champ them all!). Use those to start getting 3-stars. Champ all of them you have the roster space for. Use them to start max-covering your 4-stars and champing those... etc etc

Agree with what you're saying here, but you can't really champ a 1*. Quite important to make the distinction between champing your 2 to 5* and max leveling your 1*, as I pumped a lot of ISO in my best 1* only to find out the hard way that you can't champ them (this was before I found out about these boards).

If you're a total newbie, level your 1* up to about Lv20, any more is a waste as you'll sell them pretty soon anyway. Just keep Juggernaut if you want to play DDQ or just as a transition into 2* land.

JSP869 · August 2017

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

SpringSoldier · August 2017

JSP869 said:

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

Glad to see I wasn't the only one!

Skrofa · August 2017

JSP869 said:

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

SpringSoldier said:

JSP869 said:

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

Glad to see I wasn't the only one!

This! This small thing is what mostly prompted me to start this thread.
It's things like this that should be made clear by the game itself but whenever it was brought up in other random threads there would always be someone in the 500+ days who did not know!

And it got me thinking.
What else isn't actually general knowledge to even the most experienced players?

Jaedenkaal · August 2017

- Don't be discouraged by the level 100 enemies in the Story missions with a yellow/orange circle around them even if your highest level character is 15. You will be able to borrow the essential characters for that mission (only) and it will be a fair fight (or not, in your favor).

- Enemies fire their powers (assuming they have the AP) in a predictable order. Yellow, Red, Blue, Green, Purple Black, Team-Up. They will only fire up to a single power in each color each turn, and they won't move backwards in the order even if they get more AP in a power of a previously skipped color (from Overdrive or Gamma Siphon or whatever).That's more trivia than anything, but it's sometimes handy.

- Fortified tiles can still be removed, converted, or stolen, unlike locked tiles. The fortification only prevents the tile from being destroyed or matched.

- Read the boss abilities. And I don't just mean the tiles, I mean, go in and read the abilities. There's a really good reason Kaecillius doesn't take any damage, and no, it's not a bug.

- Never buy standard tokens. I think this is good advice even though you're no longer able to

- If you send a team-up from a championed character, the power will always be sent at 5 covers. So you don't have to re-spec your champion to send a 5-cover team up, and, there's no way to send a 3-cover team up from a championed character, even if you want to (Fastball Special, Pistol, Aggressive Recon, etc...)

Milk Jugz · August 2017

Skrofa said:

JSP869 said:

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

SpringSoldier said:

JSP869 said:

Skrofa said:

Know your enemies!
Two Maggia Muscles opposite you and there are some Tommy Gun CD tiles around and you don't know whose is what? Cycle through them and the tiles they own will light up!

What the tinykitty?!?!?!?

I'm on Day 1,275, and I'm just discovering this now??? Better late than never, I guess.

Thank you!!!

Glad to see I wasn't the only one!

This! This small thing is what mostly prompted me to start this thread.
It's things like this that should be made clear by the game itself but whenever it was brought up in other random threads there would always be someone in the 500+ days who did not know!

And it got me thinking.
What else isn't actually general knowledge to even the most experienced players?

Day 662 here and this post taught me why the game defaults back to the main page sometimes..... Had no idea that was because a new event started, I just thought the app was bugged..... (why would I think that???). Also, just recently learned of the passives order thing with my team. Though not from this post but an alliance mate maybe last week!!

Milk Jugz · August 2017

Jaedenkaal said:

- If you send a team-up from a championed character, the power will always be sent at 5 covers. So you don't have to re-spec your champion to send a 5-cover team up, and, there's no way to send a 3-cover team up from a championed character, even if you want to (Fastball Special, Pistol, Aggressive Recon, etc...)

Is this true for GR Penance Stare?!? I'm pretty sure I have to respec it to 5 every time I send it as a TU

Jaedenkaal · August 2017

Milk Jugz said:

Jaedenkaal said:

- If you send a team-up from a championed character, the power will always be sent at 5 covers. So you don't have to re-spec your champion to send a 5-cover team up, and, there's no way to send a 3-cover team up from a championed character, even if you want to (Fastball Special, Pistol, Aggressive Recon, etc...)

Is this true for GR Penance Stare?!? I'm pretty sure I have to respec it to 5 every time I send it as a TU

If he's championed, this should not be the case.

Sandolimar · August 2017

New to game, been checking out forums, and see 'champing' mentioned a lot, but no definition around for what it is, although it seems important.

Jaedenkaal · August 2017

Sandolimar said:

New to game, been checking out forums, and see 'champing' mentioned a lot, but no definition around for what it is, although it seems important.

Welcome to the forums

Once you get a 2* character (or higher) to their maximum level (94, for a 2*). You can pay a large-ish amount of ISO-8 (5000, again for a 2*) to promote that character to a "champion". This has 2 benefits.

1) You can change the number of covers for each ability for that character, keeping a total of 13, any time you like, for free. You might see this referred to as "respecing" the character, which is an oldish term that is short for re-specializing (pretty sure about that. close enough).

2) Any further covers you get for that championed (champed) character can be used to boost that character's level by 1, higher than the previous level cap. The "champion" level cap for a 2* is 144 (266 for a 3*, 370 for a 4*, 550 for a 5*).
2a) Each time you do this (boost a champ character's level by 1) you get a reward. Usually ISO-8, but often Hero Points, tokens, Command Points, or even covers for a specific character of the next tier. For example, a championed 2* Thor will (eventually) give you 3 covers for 3* Thor (one in each color) as you add champion levels to him. These rewards are not random; they are predetermined, and you can see what they'll be by pressing the "?" info button on the character screen after they have been championed.

3) Ok there's sort of 3 benefits. When you send a championed character as an ally to help out an alliance member (ie, send them a Team-Up), that Team-Up will always be the 5-cover version of that power, even if that championed character happens to have only 3 covers in that power at the time.

I think that's it. Hope it helps.

Sandolimar · August 2017

Jaedenkaal said:

Sandolimar said:

New to game, been checking out forums, and see 'champing' mentioned a lot, but no definition around for what it is, although it seems important.

Welcome to the forums

Once you get a 2* character (or higher) to their maximum level (94, for a 2*). You can pay a large-ish amount of ISO-8 (5000, again for a 2*) to promote that character to a "champion". This has 2 benefits.

1) You can change the number of covers for each ability for that character, keeping a total of 13, any time you like, for free. You might see this referred to as "respecing" the character, which is an oldish term that is short for re-specializing (pretty sure about that. close enough).

2) Any further covers you get for that championed (champed) character can be used to boost that character's level by 1, higher than the previous level cap. The "champion" level cap for a 2* is 144 (266 for a 3*, 370 for a 4*, 550 for a 5*).
2a) Each time you do this (boost a champ character's level by 1) you get a reward. Usually ISO-8, but often Hero Points, tokens, Command Points, or even covers for a specific character of the next tier. For example, a championed 2* Thor will (eventually) give you 3 covers for 3* Thor (one in each color) as you add champion levels to him. These rewards are not random; they are predetermined, and you can see what they'll be by pressing the "?" info button on the character screen after they have been championed.

3) Ok there's sort of 3 benefits. When you send a championed character as an ally to help out an alliance member (ie, send them a Team-Up), that Team-Up will always be the 5-cover version of that power, even if that championed character happens to have only 3 covers in that power at the time.

I think that's it. Hope it helps.

It does! Thank you!

Skrofa · August 2017

Updated for more info

Skrofa · August 2017

One more update.
Preview power ranks!

Skrofa · September 2017

Sorry for the triple post here but, it has to be done I guess.
I have stopped playing the game.
Nothing too dramatic, I was a hybrid player for quite some time. T10 PVE, T25 PVP and it took a toll on me.
I considered being more casual but I just knew that I couldn't just do that. If I want a casual game there are many more less problem-ridden ones! So, GG guys, keep on matching!

If anyone wants to keep this thread alive I guess it will have to be re-opened! Ta-ta!

ammenell · September 2017

it always hurts a bit reading new players should not try to get the best items in the game despite having the chance to get one.

still can't wrap my head around that design.

A newb's guide to the MPQ Galaxy (Update 21/8)

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