A question for the veterans

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

So after a lucky token pull last week, I finally managed to take my Steve Rogers to level 141, my first max 3* character! Apparently, this was the signal for the game to say “Hey there, congrats on that level 141! Now have these level 100+ teams as your opponents in every PVP match from now on.”

Since the Starfall PVP, I’m having trouble adjusting to what looks to be the new norm, instead of level 85 2* teams, since my only 3* characters above level 100 are Lazycap at 141 and Punisher at 115. My other 3* have some scattered covers here and there and are nowhere near level 100. On the other hand, my opponents have multiple level 100+ characters, some with 2 level 141’s or more, and I’m quite screwed when one of those is the featured character. I know (almost, whales excluded) everyone was at some point a newbie in 3-star land with only 1 or 2 good 3* characters so my question to the veterans is: how did you adjust? What was it like when you were in 3* territory and left the 2* stage? I guess it maybe different now with MMR changes forcing me to encounter level 100+ teams even at the start instead of at higher scores in PVPs, but I’m still interested in hearing your stories icon_e_smile.gif

Also, any advice you can give to players who are in a similar situation as mine? I think this has become more common when the MMR changes started icon_e_confused.gif

2

I was able to do it by abusing Spidey when needed.

So, with that in mind, I would recommend a Pun/OBW team to help you make the transition.

3

Pun/OBW is indeed quite useful, so I second the recommendation. My first truly high level character was a 2/5/5 Lazy Thor I brought to 128. This was maybe two weeks before season 1 started (so I’m not really much of a veteran) and tanking/retreating in SHIELD Simulator did wonders. I basically just used OBW/LT/loaner to thrash 1* and 2* teams up to ~700-800, and then could sometimes continue to close to 900 fighting similar teams to my own (i.e. 85/128 or 85/141). Once I hit a bubble where all I could find were 141 teams, I called it quits and shielded til the end. Before gentle nudging this was basically always good enough for top 10. This let me build up Lazy Cap and Punisher (who were already pretty well covered) to be cover-maxed pretty quickly to the point where Punisher was actually my first 141.

Anyway, to get back to your question, now that I gave up on tanking it’s certainly a big difference going up against close to maxed teams from the outset. I think my MMR is still not QUITE that high, since I’ll usually be able to find a team with either an 85 or a weak featured char, at least up to the 7-800 range, so it could be worse. Even now though, I still mostly will use Pun/OBW or LT/OBW just to conserve health packs while climbing (usually collecting green/red/purple is enough to control the board to the point where you don’t take too much damage and can safely collect enough blue to heal before winning). It probably makes me a bigger target than a max or close to max 3* team would be, but I can win fairly quickly and keep playing longer, so I don’t worry about it too much. With that team I can pretty easily get to 800 and from there push into the mid 900s and sometimes crack 1000 before needing to shield (it has gotten to be a huge grind though). With the slightly more relaxed season 2 (or just my luck in finding easier brackets), this has been good enough for top 10 in most events so far.

tl;dr - I abused tanking to lower my MMR and have an easier time climbing to 7-800. Back then you didn’t need much more than that to top 10. My advice would be to use OBW, if you have her maxed, with LC or Punisher depending on your play style (and if you have at least 3 green for Punisher), and don’t be afraid to use some iso to skip around to find a better matchup. I know it’s really annoying to have to do it, but it’s worth it to find the easiest match you can win for a decent amount of points (or at least a tough one that’s worth a lot), so don’t just settle for the first match for the extra iso unless you know it’s a good one.

4

play as you would usually play, if you lose, then your MMR will lower and you “should” face easier targets. manage your expectation and don’t expect to place every PVP. most importantly, don’t stressed over it and have fun!

5

op, this is exactly the reason why i don’t pump up one single hero. i’m trying to keep all my heroes within a general range of each other and trying not to bring any of them above 100 even though i have a few fully covered until i’m ready to make them ALL 141. this way i have a super solid roster of heroes to pick and choose from, i don’t get crapped on by full 141 teams, and i can still stay more than competitive in the 2*/3* transition pvp arena and get the exact same rewards a full 141 player would without all the headache.

sure it’ll take a long, long time doing it my way, but it’s way better this way in my opinion.

6

Thanks for the advice! I tried using lazycap and OBW the past few days and it’s working decently so far. I especially find cap useful for easily taking down the hulk. I actually just took my punisher to level 115 with 5/3/3 after the simulator progression reward and a lucky standard token pull, so I will try him out with either cap or OBW in the coming days.

7

I also took advantage of PvEs for a TON of iso (I know they removed first time bonuses from nodes) to get another 3* up to 100+ pretty quickly. You should try to get every bonus from each nodes over the ~2 day period a sub is active.

I’d say pick your tourneys. Don’t try for top 25 in every single PvP or you will become increasingly frustrated (especially now that Seasons are in play)

8

I advise having a team of one stars for pve. When they die, wait 15 min and they are ready to go. I have a set of 1-star at level 20 and a set at max (40/50) for pve.

9

@Bugpop: Roster slots, what roster slots? icon_lol.gif

10

Have you checked out my roster?

11

I think most of us stop scrolling on your page 15 or so because our thumbs get tired icon_e_biggrin.gif

12

Actually yes? Long ago?
What about F2P players or casual spenders?

13

After checking your roster and clicking the arrow to go to the next page a dozen times to finally see those level 20’s, I gotta ask how much hp is the next roster slot? Not that I will actually reach there icon_rolleyes.gif

14



15

Hard to participate in this conversation without sounding all “In my day, shaved ice only cost 2 pennies!”, but for what it’s worth:

It’s definitely tougher to make the 2* to 3* transition now than at any point in this game’s lifespan. It still can be done, but using the “veteran” communities’ progression curve as a benchmark for your own progression is a recipe for heartache. Even when I started it wasn’t ever easy, but seeing the dilution of 3* cover pulls and the slow nerfing of HP rewards across events I’m very glad I’m not attempting it now. I consider the lowered curve back then to be a bonus for being an early adopter of the game.

The fundamentals are the same, but the execution takes much longer. The major question you have to ask yourself is are you having fun with the base game? Progression is an inevitable by-product of just playing a bunch and following a few basic principles, so if you’re having fun it will come in time. If you aren’t, then the progression is all smoke and mirrors anyway. If enough of the player base evolves to the 3* tiers they’ll just move the goal post into 4* territory.

16

I really would like to see the following changes
Triple the number of cover slots available to players. Adjust the cost of cover slots accordingly.

1-star character - 1 slot
2-star character - 2 slots
3-star character - 3 slots
4-star character - 4 slots

Reasoning:
What constitutes a common character? A rare character?
Why are there more 3-star characters than there are 1-star and 2-star characters combined (currently 20 3-star, 12 2-star, and 7 1-star).

These are from 3/2014 character rankings (***Daken, Lazy Thor, Lazy Cap, Sentry, Falcon, Human Torch, & Nick Fury not ranked). We have 2 legendary, 14 rare, 12 uncommon, and 7 common characters.

1- Star
16. Storm (modern) - OUTSTANDING
25. Black Widow (Modern) - GOOD

  1. Juggernaut - Apparently Moonstone sucks
  2. Iron Man (Model 35)
  3. Venom
  4. Hawkeye (classic)
  5. Yelena Belova - Come on, she’s much more useful than bag-man…

2- Star
6. Black Widow (original) - INCREDIBLE
10. Thor - AMAZING
12. Ares - AMAZING
15. Storm (classic) - GREAT
17. Magneto (Marvel Now) - GOOD
18. Wolverine (yellow)
19. Daken - He would be better if he wasn’t a 1.5-star character
23. Captain America - Why isn’t he buffed in PVE anymore?
24. Hawkeye (modern) - This guy isn’t so good that I’d want my other characters to take hits for him.
28. Moonstone - Too many cooks spoiled the stew
32. Bullseye - In same Hit Point Category as Classic Storm. He might be better if he wasn’t a 1.5-star character. Why does Level 70 Bag Man have 800 More HP?
34. Bag Man - On paper he’s good

So if I’m playing MPQ, The characters definitely worth investing in are…

Great

M.Storm *
O.Black Widow **
Ares **
Thor **
C.Storm **

Good

M.Widow *
MN.Magneto **

… based on ranking they are okay …

Wolverine **
Daken **
Juggernaut *
Iron Man *

There’s 5 - 7 solid characters to get us to the point where people want to start collecting 3-star characters. It’s better to get duplicates than it is to get any of the others. The reason why people want 3-star characters is they already collected their core characters and don’t want to waste HP and ISO on Junk. So if Junk is turned into treasure, or if additional useful 1-star and 2-star were introduced, maybe the transition from 2-star to 3-star wouldn’t be so rough.

However, It makes sense that common characters should be common, and they should be used like common cards in CCG’s. So increase existing cover slots, make the 1-star characters cost 1 cover, 2-star characters cost 2, etc… and add a ton of useful 1 and 2 - star characters that can be used in teams of their own or as useful support characters to the 3-star. In MMO’s mobs drop all this crap that is worthless or just can’t be used so it sold to NPC. We get covers just to NPC it. That’s crazy

17

The problem is not that the transition is slow, but that in the middle of it, you switch from fighting people around you, and maybe a little bit behind you, to suddenly facing people whose rosters obliterate yours.

I just got my second 141. But guess what? The only way I can get PvP covers now is if one of the two is a featured hero: Otherwise I will face people with three maxed characters. So say, I am in front of a fully booster panther, magneto and lazy thor, and I have to field a panther with 5 covers, along with 2 out of patch, punisher and OBW. Every fight is a struggle, and losing a character is common. So getting to 800 points like that is just not going to happen often.

So it seems to me that, from the moment you start to use a 141 until you get enough to be able to field 3, PvP becomes extremely unfun and provides very crappy rewards, since the 3* covers might as well not exist, unless that 141 you have is boosted.

18

While i didnt express that in a specific manner I did go into great length explaining how there are only a couple of good options in 1 and 2 star categories. People dont want to invest in a character thats not useful to them. So they make good choices and opt to make the three star transition early.

Whoever makes the decisions reasoned that they need to provide more 3-star since that what players want. It is true that players want 3-star characters but it is because they want useful characters, and they dont believe that any of the remaining 1 and 2 star to be useful. So they pump out more 3-star and neglect the others.

The reality is that as common characters, there is the opportunity to make them excellent team members in a lineup. They are useful because they recover quickly. Adding a lot of one and two star characters with abilities that compliment three stars well seems to be an essential part of easing the transition. The current options are useless.

19

Thanks for the excellent insight, walkyourpath. Indeed, the 2* to 3* transition is more difficult now more than ever. I’m quite thankful that I have two characters above 100 which makes most fights doable, and I feel sorry for those with slightly weaker rosters who are also fighting high level teams. Even early on, I set my expectations to only top 50 in PVPs, since I have neither the resources, effort nor time to consistently place top 10, and I am fine with that, even if progression is a bit slow. I am still having fun with the game, and I figure I’ve stuck with this game for half a year now, why stop now right? I love this game, and I appreciate the good-natured community we have here in the forums, and I think that is exactly the reason why it makes me sad to see the game turn more and more into a cash grab with these changes recently.

20

The difficulty of transitioning 2* to 3* is more due to the number of heroes available. Since D3 seems to try to make sure no 3* is left behind, when you got 20 of those guys it also ensures you won’t be getting the same cover for any given guy for a very long time and that makes it very hard to build an effective roster. Back in the old days I don’t think it was any easier to do well in PvP, but you know with only 10 3s you’re going to see the guy you need appear much quicker. In fact, given 3 villians used to be off limits (they’re only for LRs rewards), this actually makes any 3* hero you need show up quite quickly.

I think D3 should seriously consider grouping certain characters for rewards, like say this event you can get either Sentry red or IM40 red for top 50, and the pairings should be done so that no two great heroes are ever paired together. Instead the goal should be to ensure you still have weak heroes like IM40 available without having him take up all of the 3* reward slot for PvP.