Bonus Heroes: Pros and Cons

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

There’ve been a lot of complaints in my alliance about the new bonus character system and I suspect that this is true of the community at large. I don’t think the new system is terrible but it’s definitely not as good as the developers would like us to believe. Here’s why:

First, from what I can tell, the odds of drawing the various star tiers are pretty much the same as they were before. From what I’ve seen, these are the same odds as they were previously:

4* = 7%
3* = 25%
2* = 68%

The difference is in the distribution of those pulls. I’ll compile these based on the 4* results since that’s what I see most of the complaints about. Previously, if you were looking for a specific 4* - HulkBuster perhaps – you had to divide that 7% chance by the total number of 4s in the game (a smidge over 40). This left you with less than 2/10ths of a percent chance of pulling that single 4 that you were hoping to pull. Basically, your chance of pulling that HulkBuster were diluted by equal odds of pulling Drax, Elektra, or any number of other useless characters.

With the new system, only the most recent dozen characters are available. This means that you have almost 6/10ths of a percent chance (7% / 12) of drawing a specific new character that you’re looking for (Hello, Peggy!). You don’t have to worry about drawing Drax or Elektra because they’re not in the pool of 12.

But what about our HulkBuster? This is where the bonus character comes in – on any pull, you have a 5% chance of triggering your bonus. This means the odds of triggering your 4* bonus character are 5% * 7% - or about 3.5/10ths of a percent. Not great – but you are twice as likely to pull your HB under the new system than you were under the old (I did some rounding before - it’s about 0.0017 under the old compared to 0.0035 under the new). This assumes that you only mark one 4* as a bonus hero. If you mark more than one, you have to divide that percentage chance by however many you marked.

When it comes to focusing on a specific character that you want to collect and champion, the new system is better hands down. But – and it’s a big but – we should name it Kardashian or something – 9 of the widely considered top 10 4*s are not new characters. Under the old system, we had an almost 2% chance of pulling a top 10 character. Even if we didn’t pull HB, we had a pretty fair chance of getting iceman, jg, 4clops or some other good character in exchange.

This is what hurts about the new system. Yes, I should be able to champion a single character quicker but I’ll get fewer covers of other characters that I care about. Let’s face it, there are some pretty meh characters in the dirty dozen – wasp, gwenpool, riri, agent venom… we have an increased chance to pull these rather underpowered characters at the expense of being able to pull some studs like jg or xfdp.

This is great for folks that maybe had a good 4* roster and had all the studs already but I’m on the front edge of the 4* transition and this seems a bit unfair.

Anyway, I’m keeping an open mind about the new system but I wish we could pick the contents of the vault rather than it being the newest dozen.

2

Thank you for a post about this that’s free of sarcasm, name calling, f-bombs, and hyperbole. Refreshing.

I did a similar post on another thread and it looks like if you have one or two favorite 4s, your chances of getting either one of them will be higher than before but if you keep more than two, they will be lower. This also turns out to be true for 3s, but that’s probably not as big of an issue (if you consider it an issue) since it is easier for players who need 3s to get them outside of token pulls and since the 20 3s in the stores include the top 7 (according to the forum poll) and 14 of the top 16 (plus Thanos, who wasn’t in the poll, but I suspect would be top 20 if he were).

3

I think the pros and cons are going to differ a little bit for everybody, depending on where they’re at.

I had a post earlier that noted that, well, the ‘core’ 12 in the Heroic and Legendary tokens right now are 12 I mostly don’t have in a great state of coverage. So there are a few things that go along with that.

  1. Right now, virtually any 4* cover I pull is going to be usable. Only Blade and Luke Cage so much as have a power at 4 covers, and only Kate Bishop has a power at 5 covers. Everybody else is low-coverage in the crop, so almost any 4* I get, since Peggy is ALSO my Bonus Hero in the tier right now, is going to be usable.

  2. 7 of those 12 are characters I actively WANT. 4 of the remaining 5 I’d be happy to continue to build, even if they aren’t #grabbyhands, and the 12th is someone who just isn’t rostered at the moment.

  3. As a result, since I’m not going to be pulling any 4* covers for a while that make me go ‘oh tinykitties, gotta get the ISO to champion this cat so I don’t waste the cover,’ I don’t need to hoard ISO. I can put it into whoever needs it at a given moment. That allows me to level the bottom half of my roster, who have been accumulating covers but not levels while I focused on champion opportunities.

So those are all pros for me.

The con, of course, is that Cyclops, Elektra, Iceman, Kingpin, Professor X, PunMax, Thing, Totally Awesome Hulk, Venom, Winter Soldier, and X-23 are all 4* who are between 10-13 covers for me, and who won’t get additional covers until/unless they either show up in PVE progression, I spend CP on them, or I shift to include them in ‘Bonus Heroes.’

Heck, Red Hulk is at 8 covers, and he’s in that boat also. Now, I’d take Peggy over any of those characters, but there is a definite opportunity cost for me.

And while not all of those are necessarily champion priorities, a few sure would be.

Now, somebody else might be in a situation where it’s the exact reverse: the characters in the pool are characters for whom any given pull is going to trigger the need to either champion the character or sell the cover for 1000 ISO, and the only way to get covers they’d actually use is with Bonus Heroes.

I can also see where people trying to build a 3* roster will see their progress slowed (I expect to hear griping from the girlfriend on this front sooner or later), and I absolutely empathize with those folks.

And maybe that’s another con, come to think of it. 3* Punisher being benched means that unless I use Bonus Heroes, he isn’t going to start delivering me PunMax covers anytime soon. Ditto Ragnarok and X-23 covers. There are a couple other 3* in that boat also, but the 4* covers they’d yield wouldn’t be as useful to me as those two.

So, I mean, definitely tradeoffs. At the moment, on balance, I’m happier than not with Bonus Heroes. We’ll see how I feel down the line.

4

They needed to do something about the dilution of characters. I wish they’d done the bonus hero idea without changing the other pull mechanics - best of both worlds that way.

(This was totally my idea and not monstermike’s. Monstermike gets no credit and/or chicks as a result of this post)

5

For those like myself, who have most of the older 4*s covered, were in a good place.

3* champ rewards for 4* covers just became a lot more significant.

I shudder to think how newer players will handle this.

6

Good points, DH!

I had hoped that the 12 available would be a choice of several different 12 packs the devs had put together. So not that I’d be able to pick and choose my exact 12, but that all characters would somehow be available in various 12 packs I could choose from. I wonder how often the dirty dozen will change.

7

someone in the huge threas said that a 4 pull on a legend does not guarantee a 4.

it’s a 5% chance on each pull.

8

Slight correction to the bolded section (this info from Anthony (dev) was edited into Brigby’s post, so some might have missed it) .

On any pull, the odds of getting a bonus hero depend on what star level that pull is:
2* : 0%
3* : 17%
4* : 17%

So, if you pull a 3* or a 4*, you’ll get a matching bonus cover about 1 out of 6 times. The total odds on all pulls works out to 5%, so your math is correct overall - I just wanted to point out that subtlety.

Also, he cited a distribution of 71%/23%/6% for 2/3/4 stars.

EDIT - upon re-reading your post, it appears that your math is actually not correct after all. That hulkbuster cover should be there 6% × 17% = 1.02%, not 0.3% of the time.

9

Thing is… You can set any of the big 10 as bonus characters and if you are buying legendary tokens, even classic ones then the chances of hitting that specific 4* is now 1 in 20 pulls… which is over double the old chance of hitting it via that method… and if you pull a 4* from a heroic token then you have a pretty solid chance of getting it there too.

And as for the whole, how do I get OML covers people are desperate for, well this helps that out as well..

I just don’t see the problem…

You just need to plan a bit in advance… so focus on 1 or 2 of the older 4* first, then when happy with them change the bonus heroes to the next critical ones…

Granted, for me it is ideal, as I have most 4* championed or max-covered other than the latest ones… so I am undeniably in the sweet spot.

Bear in mind that to get to SCL 8 you have to a half decent roster… so this is designed to be a way of helping you get covers for your favourite or needed characters.

There is no doubt it could have been both more generous and more player friendly, but then this is a new extra benefit that does not in anyway weaken the chances of getting the 4* you really want.

10

The only guarantee is if you get a 3* from a standard. Elites, Heroics, and Legendaries do not guarantee Bonus Hero pulls.

11

It’s shield rank 8, not shield clearance level. Actually helps new players a lot as they can favourite a top tier 4* and all the bonus heroes will be progress towards it.

12

I’m glad that I can pick one of the top 4* and get covers for him/her.

But then I have 12 characters that were chosen for me. Out of those 12, 2 aren’t even in my roster, Peggy is fine, Kate is decent but everyone else is simply not my priority. So now I have 10/12 chance to get something that I don’t want.

13

A newer player can build a Hulkbuster or an Iceman or anyone else they like faster under this system than under the old one.

While being able to get one of the new 4*s to max faster than they could under the old system.

Instead of buying slots and hanging onto 35 half covered 4 starts a new player will need a lot less slots while they progress quicker.

14

Unless we want to complete DDQ for the daily CP and extra taco token. Then we still need to have ever 4 star.png
and getting the older ones just became more complicated.

15

I have 13 4 stars who are not champs. 7 of them are from the latest dozen. 6 of them needing a total of 28 covers.
If I bust my token hoard now I’ll need 2.6 million ISO to champ the new guys or risk losing a ton of covers. While without the vault I’d profit from the work I put into my older 4stars and reap champ rewards and levels. Earning me part of the ISO needed to max the new guys.

So not only didn’t they improve the 5star progression significantly but they also negated my past efforts. That’s not a good tradeoff for covermaxing a bunch of new 4stars imho

16

How about creating different stores for all 4*?
Store 1 - hulkbuster, kingpin, x-23, etc…
Store 2 - Jean, starlord, the thing, etc…
Store 3 - Medusa, cage, ghostrider, etc…
And so on…

Would it help?

17

Major con for me is that my chances of pulling a wasted token have jumped from 15% to 21% with this change and are only going to get worse as I get more unfinished characters with 5 covers in one colour unless I stop pulling tokens, which is a horrible way for a reward system to work.

18

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19

You are correct. But if you favorite all the 4* you are essencially back in the same place you were before the change, but you actually gain an extra cover (the first one you pull, which is from the limited 12). So while this really seems to humper your ability to gain a good cover in short term, I believe it actually makes it better in the long run, especially that you can just favorite all the top 10 heroes and nothing more.

In the community video they explain the logic and I see it fitting: you have more chances to focus on newer heroes, and also have the ability to get the older ones.

When I first understood what they did, I was a little upset myself. But after I analysed the situation, I think it’s not that bad as people see it. Maybe you won’t use Agent Venom… true, but looking on the bright side, you have better chances to draw Medusa or Peggy. So if you compare the old system to the new one you could get an example like this:

5 pulls:
*old system => Wasp, Drax, Peggy, Deadpool, Iceman
*new system => Wasp, Venom + Iceman (bonus), Peggy, Medusa, Deadpool + Hulkbuster (bonus).

Of course you probably need more than 5 pulls to get a bonus, but the ideea is the same as the championing heroes… it’s good in the long run.

If you wanted Peggy in the past you needed extreme luck to get her from 20+ pulls. Now you can get her from 10, and you can also get other useful covers in the process (one in 10 may grand a bonus).

20

So is it in a players best interest to favorite a few of the best older four stars that they’re working on trying to get covered, or favorite just 1-2 until that one is covered and ignore the rest until they’re finished. Obviously as a new system there’s not a lot of data but I’m curious about people’s thoughts.

I’ve been taking a bit of a break as of late and just meeting my alliance’s very lax requirements, but I went a little ham and favorited icon_wolverine.png
and icon_greengoblin.png
in 5-star land, then icon_jeangrey.png
, icon_iceman.png
, icon_cyclops.png
, icon_peggycarter.png
, icon_redhulk.png
, and icon_ironman.png
as 4-stars. I should probably trim that down to focus-fire, right? I favorited Thanos_Icon.png
and icon_doctoroctopus.png
as my only unchampioned 3-stars, but are people just favoriting 3-stars with the best champ rewards?

Very unsure how I feel about this change, but we’ll wait and see. The whole reason I took a break was over the grind of trying to get through the 4-star transition was getting to me, and I can’t really decide if this helps or hurts more.