An Attempt at the Vault Problem

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
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This post is going to assume that character vaulting (retiring characters for seasons at a time) for the purpose of maintaining drop rates on tokens is a bad idea. I have no issue with vaulting characters that need reworks or are otherwise bugged / broken. I also have no application coding experience, so I don’t how feasible this idea is on a technical level or not. It’s also only addressing 3* characters, as they are the only ones being vaulted for the time being. Lastly, the percents I use as an example are not drawn from current drop rates - I don’t have those immediately available to me - so assume they are inherently inaccurate and evaluate the idea based on the core concepts, not the rates included.

First, allow each player to name a variable number of characters as “desirable” or “I really want this character.” This number can vary depending on the degree of randomness desired.

Example heroic token drop rate:

4* character - 1%
3* “desirable” character - 3%
3* random (pool of all 3*) - 12%
2* random (pool of all 2*) - 84%

The random pools would include the event characters as well in different events. The pools can also be weighted individually - if the Devs want to hand out a 2* storm 24% of the time for a 2* token, they just weight the pool that way. This can be done with the one random table method currently available (just add a “desirable” percent drop as a character, so to speak) or setting it up as multiple random tables like I did in the table above.

The impact of the “desirable” character choice:

It guarantees a certain drop rate for characters depending on the number of slots allowed. No matter how many 3s are allowed, if you have a 3% shot to get one of the (3,5,10, etc) characters you choose. That number won’t decrease even if there are 1,000 3 characters as long as that 3% stays constant. Secondly, it allows players who have large collections to have slight influence over their drops. If I only need covers for say, 12 heroes this lets me pick out characters that I still need covers for and (very slightly) lowers my ability to pull covers I don’t need randomly. Assuming the percent change for a “desirable” character is reasonable, this should not affect Hero Point purchases / revenue for D3. As a final perk, it allows newer players who want to aim for their favorites or to finish covering one character a minor influence over their drops. If a 2* player has 7 Falcon covers and wants more Falcon, he or she can specify Falcon as a “desirable” to slightly boost his odds. This will be most pronounced when there are a large number of 3* covers available - see the above example of 1,000 3* characters for an extreme reference.

Obviously the more “desirable” characters allowed, the lower the drop rate for each will be (using the 3% example, a pool of 3 “desirables” would be the equivalent of 1% each, 6 would be 0.5% each, etc). Also, the characters chosen by the player should not be removed from the pool of all 3*s either - if I have Gamora as a desirable character, it’s possible I don’t get a “desirable category” roll but still get her anyways.

Hopefully this makes sense. If you see glaring flaws I missed or improvements to be made, then please feel free to call them out.

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Lol those drop rates are sooo true

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–edit Misread it the first time, so the post is much shorter now.

This doesn’t stop the problem of having too many different types of covers for new characters at one time.

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If i read his suggestion correctly the individual player would be able to designate desirable/undesirable not having them be set randomly.

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I’m guessing that Demiurge does not look at vaulting as a “problem”. Because it probably is a great revenue generator. I think about my own behavior… when Magneto got vaulted I had 12 covers. Because I knew I couldn’t get that 5th blue for several months, I went ahead and paid the 1250 HP for it. And it was well worth it.

When a character comes out of the vault, players know they will be feature a lot for a while. Possibly a motivator to buy token packs that feature that character.

The company’s goal is to make desirable covers so that players purchase them, not so that players can set an option to make it easier to get those covers. This might be different if all characters were roughly equal in the meta, but people had different desires based on their personal tastes for certain characters. But because of the game structure at least 80% of player base would all opt for the same covers (unless they were already fully covered).

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Corrections based on reinterpretation thanks to Cryptobrancus.

  1. This would force the stats too much into the player’s face. This is not what d3 wants. D3 wants people to spend without thinking. More people would complain that making a character desired doesn’t increase the odds enough and that this game is p2w.
  2. D3 benefits in having people not able to just complete the heroes they want. This forces players to spend money trying to complete multiple characters as opposed to just one.
  3. When characters are ‘desired’ and people open tokens and don’t get them, can you not imagine the number of complaints there would be? There will be all sorts of conspiracy theories like ‘make a character desired, and you’ll never get him again’.
  4. It would lessen roster diversity.

This is another one of those ‘would be great for all the players but not for d3 due to the hassle’ ideas.

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Thank you for the replies!

If Demiurge does not feel it’s a problem, then the assumption that vaulting is bad is faulty and thus my post wouldn’t apply. I was just looking for some way for Demiurge to not-vault characters that would still allow reasonable drop rates on some 3*s.

It’s true that a lot of people (especially those who came to the forums) would pick the top meta characters. The solution to that (from Demiurge’s perspective) is to set a larger number of “desirable” characters, which lowers the chance of getting a particular character.

From reading the forums I’ve noticed that a lot of people are starting to hoard tokens waiting for characters to come out of the vault. This solution would allow them to spend their tokens immediately instead of hoarding them. So I feel like the monetary effects would come down to Demiurge comparing the money lost on people hoarding tokens / not buying tokens / not buying token packs because their characters are vaulted versus the money gained from people buying covers only because the characters are vaulted. I consider hoarding to be a money-loss because people could pull other covers that would incentivize them to spend money on covers for other characters, but instead they’re saving for the one particular character. Having a “desirable” category might also otherwise encourage token purchases.

This is correct, thanks. My apologies for the confusion, I tend to write overly-verbose and it doesn’t really help me convey my points effectively. It’s something I’ve been trying to correct for a while.

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There first semi solution was the deadpool daily. And I’m sure this has probably made some token sales for them when players see a vaulted character available in the packs.
With nefarious foes I was ready to jump in and shield if needed to get capt marvel, but I botched this from the get go and didn’t bother.
Seeing my mentality with that, I do think it would make sense if every third or fourth pvp was for a vaulted character, even during the seasons. I think this would increase intensity among people who want the cover, bring in people to try and get it before the cover showz up in the ddq, hp spent on shielding, and hp spent on cover packs.
I see black panther as a good example. I imagine a lot of transitioners would go after this if he popped up in a pvp.