I've been mulling this over since last week, and I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it, to be honest. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or "sea-lion" about this, but I really don't get it. I will also preface this by saying that the ending of the 50/50 vault (or the division of "Latest" and "Vintage" 4* characters, if you prefer,) actually kind of benefits me more than it hurts me - I have all but the most recent 3 4*s champed and since the champ rewards get better the higher the character is, it means better rewards all in all. To me, though, it does make the game a lot less fun since a) it's going to take quite a lot longer to champ a 4* after it's introduced, probably six months or more, and b) even after the 4* is champed, they're going to be much lower than the rest of my 4* roster and won't advance quickly like they did before.
For those interested, I made an examination of how vaulting affected the time to complete a character and what level it became, that's here:
So anyway, at this point I'm really baffled as to why they ended the system - it seemed like a great compromise between full vaulting (which was pretty much universally despised, at least when it came out,) and full dilution. It allowed players to cover newer characters much more quickly, which in turn made new characters more exciting, and definitely made it easier for players to transition to the 4* tier. It did make older characters harder to cover, sure, but dilution is doing that every time they add a new character. The way I see it, there are three possible explanations:
1) From the game developers perspective, the vaulting system caused more problems than it resolved. I... really don't see this. Were we covering characters faster than they wanted us to? Is 2-3 months too fast? I know the more cynical of you will cry "money grab," but honestly it's really hard to buy a 4* out of vaults and, in general, not worth it to a 5* player. It seemed like a good solution to token dilution to me, but perhaps it was too good? Was it too much work to maintain, maybe?
2) From the player's perspective, the vaulting system caused more problems than it resolved. To me, this makes even less sense than 1. Sure, like I said above, higher level characters give better rewards, but with the 50/50 system I could regularly get new characters up to around 310 before they fell out of the "Latest" pool. That means they will actually have an impact on my roster, and may see some play when they're boosted. My Jubilee, for example, is 275. She seems like a pretty neat character, and not a bad one to try and build a team around, but why bother without that leg up? The system made it a lot easier to complete characters after they were introduced.
3) They needed to remove the vaulting system in preparation to another solution to dilution. This is what I hope is the answer, but I'd love some confirmation. Certainly the Saved Covers system does nothing for this. Sure, they upped the chance of pulling a 4* in general, but from what I can tell it's going to come out to, in practice, a vanishingly small amount.
Anyway, that's my question as well as my take on the former and current situation. I'd love to hear from a red name about this, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't chime in with your POV and your opinion as well.
ThaRoadWarrior said: I think you're seeing the larger plan for this unfolding already: The announcement itself came with better event-store odds for the 4* featured, and those stores are coming around more often with the increase in 4* PVP. Now, just a few weeks after the odds went flat, we are seeing a change to Hybrid PVP rules so that people who would not classically have been able to get to 900pts (or to the 2nd or 3rd event token levels) can now choose to grind to 40 wins and get a specific 4* every 3 days or so. This is pretty close to the 3* required node in DDQ with an added level of difficulty commensurate with the value of the cover you get. So in aggregate, players probably are going to get more 4*s generally, even targeted 4*s between versus and story, if they are willing/able to put in the work. This doesn't address the "well, I like Wiccan and want to try for more of his covers, how do i do that now?" question, unless there is some under-the-hood latest/oldest rotation on being featured we will need to determine.My personal tinfoil-hat theory about why it was done is this: What if we aren't going to be getting new release 4* characters as often anymore, and the cadence starts to favor 5*s? That obviously comes with its own ecosystem of changes that will need to happen, but if we aren't rotating 4*s out of "latest" as quickly (or at all, if you think that the tier is going to solidify altogether like the 1,2 and 3s have done), then it doesn't make sense to have an odds distinction for 12 arbitrarily released characters any longer.
PolarPopBear said: My personal tinfoil-hat theory about why it was done is this: What if we aren't going to be getting new release 4* characters as often anymore, and the cadence starts to favor 5*s? That obviously comes with its own ecosystem of changes that will need to happen, but if we aren't rotating 4*s out of "latest" as quickly (or at all, if you think that the tier is going to solidify altogether like the 1,2 and 3s have done), then it doesn't make sense to have an odds distinction for 12 arbitrarily released characters any longer. If they were decreasing the 4* rate from 445 to 45 they could have just reduced the 12 to a comensurately smaller number
My personal tinfoil-hat theory about why it was done is this: What if we aren't going to be getting new release 4* characters as often anymore, and the cadence starts to favor 5*s? That obviously comes with its own ecosystem of changes that will need to happen, but if we aren't rotating 4*s out of "latest" as quickly (or at all, if you think that the tier is going to solidify altogether like the 1,2 and 3s have done), then it doesn't make sense to have an odds distinction for 12 arbitrarily released characters any longer.
It's not a bad point, but I don't see the game economy supporting a 5* every other week, even every four weeks. They've done one 4* between 5s before, the 5* release averages something like 5 weeks but it's largely made up of 5445 releases.
Possibly they're gearing up for something, though.
mega ghost said: Weren't we told a new feature was likely going to be announced in the coming off-season? Assuming that wasn't Saved covers or the update to PvP, I've had my fingers crossed that this will be the answer — as, yes, the removal of the Latest pull percent bonus seems very much like a preliminary step being taken for something else.
bluewolf said: But here's the thing no one has brought up: The Cover Bank feature has made it possible to avoid waste and would have gotten that timeframe even shorter. Instead of selling off the 6th Valkyrie black, you can now bank it as a champ level.
Dormammu said: The answer to why 50/50 latest/classics was eliminated seems fairly obvious to me: event vaults weren't sellingNewly released 4-stars were quick and easy to fully cover through normal game play income, pulling out of Latest Legends. Hoarders could fully cover them as soon as they entered token pools. For everyone else, 13 covers were a certainty before the 4-star left the latest 12. So there was no urgency to spend in a vault and nab a cover or two during the release window/event. Vault sales = down.So what's the answer? Go back to dilution. Now it's not so easy to get those characters covered in a reasonable amount of time. And look at this! You now have slightly better odds of pulling 4-stars out of event vaults! Doesn't that look attractive? Don't you want the new shiny?