5* Remorse?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
21

Guilty as charged. Here’s the thread I made about the first 5* transition, if you care to read it.

I had originally champed OML, Black Suit Spidey, and Thanos. Thanos was the only competitive one of the three - BSS has been a joke for a long time, and it was after OML had received his nerf.

I sold them after 2-3 weeks because getting utterly curbstomped in PVP was no fun, and I didn’t enjoy using the same characters all the time in PVE - at the time, PVE still scaled to your roster, not your clearance level, so even boosted 4*s were getting crushed by the insanely overscaled opponents.

I can confidently say that if PVE scaling still worked that way, I would still be softcapping my 5*s. Of course, what actually happened was that roster scaling was abolished like a week after I sold them, so I got screwed pretty hard by the “we never announce a damn thing” policy.

As @OJSP mentioned, I have since re-entered the 5* fray and I’m up to 8 champions - I actually just champed OML again a few days ago. I actually only recently got Bolt champed - for quite a while I was rolling with Gambit and Peter Parker as my go-to team. While having the current “meta” team available (god I hate that word) does make it easier, I will say that a lot of the original things that bothered me continue to do so:

  • Lack of PVP variety. 95% of my matches are against Gambit, and of those, 95% have Bolt or Thor as the other teammate. The first time around it was Thanos/Panther, and I would argue that Gambolt is actually much worse since at least Panthos was weak on defense.

  • PVP scoring, counterintuitively, becomes harder. When I was using boosted 4s, I could pretty consistently float at 600+, then make an easy push to 900 in the last 8 hours and get away with one shield. Now the hits flow in at a steady rate, since the 5 playing field is much more even, so my float point is much lower and I usually have to shield out lower than I’d like.

  • Healthpack usage is off the charts. This has actually gotten far worse under the Gambolt/Thorbit regime than it ever was against Panthos. If you don’t kill Gambit in 3-4 turns, you will lose a big chunk of health. It’s borderline unavoidable unless you luck into a lot of red AP early. This, in addition to the fact that simple match-4s and -5s become devastating in 5* play, compounds the PVP misery even further.

Alllllll of that said, though, the change to PVE scaling has made the overall situation much better. Even though I still use Gambolt in most events just for the sake of speed, I do have the option to play with boosted 4s in most nodes if I want to, and even when I do use them, the third teammate is usually the boosted 4* who covers the most out of blue/yellow/black for actives. Also, if I really want to blow through an event quick, I can drop down to CL7 or 8 and use my 5*s to crush everything handily. At the end of the day, PVE is a much bigger time sink than PVP, so the dramatic improvement there has made everything much more bearable.

I wouldn’t say I regret selling my original 3, exactly, because 4* play is still definitely the most fun part of the game. I just really wish I still had Thanos, since he’d make PVE even faster and now he’s locked away in the Classic nether-realm.

22

Just because you have a champed 5* doesn’t mean you’re obliged to use it. Drop down to SCL5 and play with your 3*s for a few weeks instead.

23

Hi. Former player / active forum user here with a new profile used mainly for stalking the forum.
The foremost and biggest reason I quit MPQ those months ago: entering the 5* realm.
What happened was me champing Thor. Great fun. Then I wanted Daredevil and Gambit as well, and I made (nearly) everything right: played like a mad-man (10 hours / week?) and payed heavy dollars. When having enough resources to fully cover my desired heroes, well, things didn’t go my way, they left the latest pool and I thought:
“I’m not gonna play this unfair game in its current state no more”.

I quit. With 11 Daredevil and 10 Gambit covers, but a Thor I managed to add 5 champion levels to.

So the 5* thing made me quit the game. But do I regret it? That’s one for you to discuss.

PS: MPQ sober for 3+ months now, no backlash.

PS. again:
Mexus is still watching you. Everyone of you. All the time.

24

If I had to pick only one of Daredevil, Gambit and Thor to champ, Thor would probably be it. Very fun to play and useful in both PvP and PvE. So I don’t Think you were quite so bad off as you describe. And Daredevil might be champable with the bonus covers that got added to Kingpin’s champion rewards, don’t know what your situation is there.

I’ll just repeat what has been said already: Like all other tiers of play, the fivestar realm is no fun when you first enter it, but as you keep getting more fivestar champions you get more and more options and the game gets fun again.

25

I have no plans to enter the 5* tier yet, as I’m still working on champing all my 4s (I think it’s 46 so far). It’s been very useful to read this thread. I think I will just raise my useable 5s up to 320, if that is the “safe” level, and see how it goes from there.

26

I’m up to 63 of 66 champed 4s, and I’m very happy to remain in this tier. None of my 5s have any ISO in, and they will likely remain that way until they stop releasing 4s. The 5 game has never appealed to me whatsoever.

27

Not remorse for me. More like malaise. Every aspect of the game has gotten significantly more dull since starting to use 5*. But if I sell them, there’s not much point in playing, because I’m not progressing at all, just expanding laterally.

28

Another idea would be to not approach the game thinking “which of my champs will do the most damage and clear quickest,” and go with the characters in the actual story.

Hearts of Darkness features Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Wolverine, plus the three loaners. Use them. Nobody else. You can cycle between variations, bench the most wounded for a while, whatever, but that’s your team.

29

I’ve been singing this same song though I will say the one thing that makes the 5 tier worse than all others is the lack of a boost list. With the exception of this week (which was very rough), I usually have. most all characters (sans the new release) boosted. This allows me to play varying combinations of characters. If this weren’t the case (as in the 5* tier) I imagine you just play your two best champions more or less every event. Even if you have 15 champs why would you play Phoenix or Widow or Cap or Rider instead of Gambit/Thor/Bolt? And you could say “well that’s just a problem with Gambit” but it was true when Panthos was the meta as well. You just play your fastest or best defensive combo. But in the 4-tier what that combo is changes drastically week to week while in the 5 tier it’s the same until the meta shifts.

30

I have thought about it yes. My 3-0-4 gambit makes pvp a slog I don’t like. I went from hitting 575 every event and the occasional push to 900 to 300 and out (which Thanbolt makes slightly less of a slog). Season I usually stop at 4K unless I need resources and again I usually only get up to 300 (if I get seed teams to help).

I’ve been playing scl9 semi optimally and now without tapping I’m back into top 20 finishes. Other than a couple events I can mostly get through the 5e node with undercovered and underleveled essentials. 5trange or my 2-4-2 Thormerica usually work. It is slowly getting better as far as PVE but I definitely don’t like the PVP slog where I have to use the same team. Playing semi optimally in PVE (I late start and do initial grind and end grind) using whatever team I want for each node and not caring how much time it takes to clear has made it fun. I can use all of my boosted 4* and 3* and even use some of my unboosted characters to run teams with synergy.

Once you get over the scratch and claw for every single reward “need” it becomes much more entertaining. Granted, I have more free time than most (I’m assuming) so 3 hours a day for Fun/interesting PVE is doable for me versus 1 1/2 to 2 hour of using the same characters over and over. I say stick with it and bounce around PVE SCL levels as other people suggested. PVP I have nothing to help as my 3 champed 5* are 5trange, Phoenix, and Thanos.