Character Inflation

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
21

Newer player here, currently on day 138 and playing F2P. Nice to see so many of you saying you’re HP positive as it has been my biggest gripe so far and I’ve had to let a lot of 3*/4* covers expire. I didn’t look on line for strategy tips to begin with and it took me a month or two to realize I was wasting roster slots on 1*s at my level, and even longer looking at other people’s rosters to realize you only needed one for DDQ; my own fault there though.

Currently sat at 28 of the 3s and 18 4s. Probably would have been better to focus on just 3s but I’m only picking up 4s if they’re interesting (i.e. kicked my ass in PVP), just changed strategy to also try and recruit any new 4* as soon as possible to take advantage of the multiple covers available.
Over the next few weeks got a 4* Vulture I don’t want to let expire and then the 3 X-Force Wolverines through daily rewards. My roster slots currently come in at 750 HP and I’m probably able to afford three a fortnight. So even with my unwise 4* commitments I should be able to transition from3 to 4 star sometime early next year (and start using my latest legends toucans/CP too).
As HoundofShadow said above it’s a bit of a marathon. I’ll be spending my CP points on Classic legends to try and get as many 4s as possible but will probably only have about 2,000 to burn when I start this process, getting any champed 4 let alone a useful quantity seems a long way off.
Advantage of being HP negative is I’m 1.2 million ISO positive but I imagine that will disappear quickly when I do finally start pulling 4*s regularly.

22

HP was my biggest bottleneck as a totally F2P player. I just passed day 1,000, so I’m fine on it all now. I determined at some point that 3s were relatively reliable to get on purpose through bonus heroing, so I gutted my roster down to just the ones i actually used and started rostering 4s aggressively. I kept a 3* flex spot I’d use to roster a single cover of whoever was required, sometimes doing it several times per event in the case of like an allance event where i needed to get node access and had several covers on the vine for the same character. I don’t know if that was the “fast way” to getting where I am, it’s just the way I got here. I was then alternating between 4s and 3s until I was back to having everyone. Most of my hp came from 2* farming and pve. I was grinding everything I could for a long time, and now that I have everyone (but Cable) on roster, I just play PVE to progression

23

It helps my HP stack that i regularly place top 50 in PVE. That’s 100 HP every day. It surely is a bit more stressfull than going for max progression alone, but worth it imo.

24

That’s true. I usually only do that if somebody like Okoye or Medusa are boosted to make the final grind trivial, or if it’s a character release event anymore though. But in my experience, anything even close to an optimal clear (4X at open, 2X within an hour or so of close) is usually good for t50 if you want it and have all the requireds

25

I’ve had friends that I’ve recommended to play this game quit after a few weeks as the time investment to start is like having a part time job.

26

Yeah, the 25,000 was a light figure. I pulled down 40,000 today so far.

Agree. 4* champ cost is way high.

27

Yeah it’s kinda odd. Some people complain about games locking them out of playing due to power/health/time meters or what have you. Here, you can play almost as much as you want. In season you can literally just play and play and play and play. But the PVP/PVE grind is a bit much. Max progression should be 60 wins PVP. Trim PVE down to 5 total grinds per node over 24hrs (3 clears to knock the timer back to 24s, 2 clears to knock the points down to 0).

28

Agreed, something has to be done to streamline the grind a bit. I just hate playing nodes my roster demolishes.

Its also a hard sell telling people that it takes about a year plus to truly get anywhere and even then if you don’t spend money or play 24/7 you will slowly progress.

29

It’s how you set your goals. If you mean by ‘truly getting anywhere’ as racing through nodes and vying for top placement, then yes, it takes a lot of time. Personally, i just started playing and enjoyed the fact that i was able to complete more and more nodes ( can’t remember how long it took that i could complete DDQ). Now about two years later, and with steady improvement to my roster, i can easily reach max progression in PVE (don’t play much PVP). Really going for top placement isn’t really for me, for i lack both the absolute will and probably the funds.

30

I started not quite two years ago, and was able to get to HP positive in less than a year, even with some poor decisions made before I found the forum and learned not to spend them on anything but Roster slots. Spent maybe US$60 or so during that time.

Since I started, tho, there have been another 48 or so characters released. Something like a 40% increase in the number of needed slots. That’s a pretty substantial extra hurdle there.

31

I’m totally a FTP player on day 439 and I have 124 roster slots. I’ve had some problems with internet, with my phone and social life preventing me from playing the game optimally. I also made some pretty bad decisions recruiting characters (constanting selling well covered recruited characters to recruri those I liked more). Overall I think that the price is pretty fair because it pushes us enough to purchase, but doesn’t make the game impossible to play if we don’t. I mean, they have to make some money to keep MPQ alive, right? I recruit a new character every week, sometimes even more than that, which is an average higher than the launching of new characters, so it’s slow, but I’m getting there. It wouldn’t hurt if the devs stretched that 1000 HP roster slot point by 5 or 10 slots, but I don’t think it would make the game any less pleasant or difficult to play.

PS: I’m not FTP by choice. If I could, I would purchase some bundles from time to time.

32

I passed day 1000 during Anniversary and am HP positive.

I’ve hit the stage in the game where quite a few of my 3* are getting max-champed. I’ve duped some of them (Patch, IM40, Super Steve, Magneto) but the idea of rostering all 3* again is quite daunting in terms of HP costs and Iso. I have 2 Deadpool covers on my vine which I am dithering on. I have more than enough HP but it feels like a slippery slope I’m heading down if I decide to go this route. I will definitely dupe my 3* Strange who needs one cover to be max-champed and there are others who I will dupe also but otherwise it seems a bit scary to be basically re-starting the 3* tier.

So it doesn’t end with just rostering the characters first time round…

33

Really don’t want this to turn into a suggestions thread, but i have always thought roster slots should be added to PVE rewards, especially new char releases.

34

Roster slots are the primary revenue generator for the game, so don’t expect that to change. Especially now that they gave us saved covers, which to me was mostly about encouraging rostering more characters.

Recently, unannounced, the game has begun to stress the last 3 released 4’s in terms of essentials for PVE. So while the essential pattern is L(atest), L, L, V(intage), V, if you roster the newest people, that gets you into the 4E for a lot of PVEs. It also means that you’ll get more covers for those characters.

What this means is that your actual roster needs are slightly reduced in terms of node access (from the point of view of, who should I roster for maximum return of being able to play events?). It also means you can get these newer 4’s covered relatively quickly.

In a sense, this is a partial retirement of characters once they are a few months old.

That aside, the size of the 4 tier (and 5, to some extent) is really getting a bit silly. 72 4’s (non-limited), and 5 boosted per week means - at most - 4 times a year, you’ll see any particular 4 boosted. The Vintage essential cycle is now a years-long cycle between needing a 4 as an essential.

A lot of the remaining issues in the game at this point are trying to deal with its success/longevity. Adding characters generates revenue in terms of roster slots and people chasing covers, but each one matters a little less and makes the hurdle to new players entering the tier higher.

The only way to reverse the dilution would be retiring characters, but you can’t retire characters without removing them from tokens, which would make a lot of people unhappy in terms of missed champ rewards as well as anyone trying to complete that character.

The remaining solution would be to somehow make 4’s more accessible, but that ends up creating more roster slot pressure (although you could feel more comfortable letting people go if the tier was more available). It also brings up the question of making 4* covers less valuable, since getting more of a resource makes it lose relative value. And given that we are being “sold” a new 4 every couple weeks or so…devaluing the tier in an official way doesn’t seem likely.

I am curious as to when and if the developers will take more steps to reduce this hurdle in the game.

35

It’s honestly not as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Many new players in this thread stated they were able to “catch up” within a year. When you look at the staggering number of HP needed to do that, it’s pretty impressive.

The game drastically reduced the iso crunch by giving us saved covers. Now they are supposed to do the same with slots? I mean the developers have stated that it’s their biggest source of revenue and at some point the game needs to make money. Creating that pressure of who do I roster/ who do I let go of can be fun for new players. If anything like me you seek advice, read ranking lists and all of a sudden a community is formed of like minded players trying to pass down knowledge that can help you in your struggle. With no “struggle” I probably never would have found these boards.

That struggle also also puts players to a choice of whether of not to spend and keep both covers. These are ultimately good things even if it’s annoying at first.

36

Not to tell you how to play but you should probally start converting that hp into other resources (iso, command points, covers) via off season 40 packs