Data Collection on 4 -> 5* feeders

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
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I decided to start collecting this data because of this discussion - and also because of the frequent griping that they always go with the newer 4* characters when deciding on feeders. Negative confirmation bias always draws people’s attention to the bad, but the actual figures don’t lie so it’s useful to break it down and look at the hard numbers.

The table is arranged in the order of the announcement of the 4* feeder. To elaborate on the fields of this table -

5* Character and Intro - the 5* being fed and the date it was released (the Monday after the store opened to keep the dates neat.)

4* Feeder and Intro date - the 4* feeder and the date it was released (again, the Monday after the start of the event where they were released.)

Feeder Date - the date the 4* yielded the 5* covers

4* Age - how many days old the 4* was at the time of the Feeder Date

Fit? - A subjective assessment of how well the 4* feeder thematically fit the 5* it feeds. This assessment is based on the 4* characters available at the time of the Feeder Date - if the 4* was among the best possible choices then the fit is “strong.” If there 2 or so better choices available for the feeder then the fit is “medium,” if there are 4 or more better choices available for the feeder then the fit is “weak.”

Gap - the number of days between this Feeder Date and the Previous one.

Here’s a copy of the Excel spreadsheet this this data so you can sort it by whatever criteria you want. This version of the spreadsheet has removed the “fit?” column and put in a “5* Age” column defined as the number of days between the 5* Intro and the Feeder Date.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D47UKJ5_DamSoafWXM6UuBi-Q0ommv59

Here is a graphic of the spreadsheet. Hopefully the formatting will be ok:

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So anyway, we can draw a few interesting observations based on this data:

  • While some four star characters were only a few months old when they became feeders, the majority were older. 12 were noticeably over a year old at the time they became feeders.

  • There are a few odd connections, but most of there characters thematically match the 5*.

  • They were pretty consistently once a month early on, but the gap started getting more irregular. We are currently in the longest gap between feeders.

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Can you add any major event that sparked the feeder? Movie, tv show, big comic event, etc… Maybe we can find a pattern.

4

21 in the first year seems a bit heavily above “pretty consistently one a month early on.” 9 in the first 5 months is nearly 2 a month.

1st month had 3.
5th month had 2.
8th month had 7.
10th month had 2.

I’m still not buying the one a month thing people like to think is the norm.

If anything this just confirms in my mind we need to stop looking for patterns.

Edit: I came off a bit aggressive in my reading it back. Not my intent, thank you very much for compiling this info.

5

I can think of three that tied to real-life events - Wasp was given a feeder to tie in to the movie (which is probably why she’s the only 5* that got a feeder while still in Latest,) Ghost Rider tied to Halloween, and Silver Surfer tied in to the Marvel FF Celebration. If we broaden our focus a bit more, they did seven feeders (Thor through BSSM) to tie in with the Marvel Movie 10 year anniversary. If we look at in-game events, Doc Ock got a feeder with his rework. So if we highlight that lot, we don’t really see any particular pattern.

On second thought, we can state that since July of last year they’ve done one Feeder (Jessica Jones) that did not related to an external event - that could definitely be significant and explain our current gap.

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You know, that’s very fair. I should have said we got one per month early on other than special releases. If you look at Green Goblin through Wolverine it’s very regular. I think it’s possible they originally intended to do one per month, then they decided to make it more event-related. Hmmm, let’s look up when saved covers went into effect…

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I’d drop the fit column and put in a column for the gap between 5* intro date and the feeder date. It honestly might be the least relevant data, but it would be interesting to see that Loki and Wasp got feeders on release and Surfer had to wait 3-1/2 years.

One thing to consider might be the relative amount of fed vs unfed 5*s in relation to the gap. Did the % get too low or too high before/after the IW feeders? How many gap days until we reach that % again? Would that lead to another feeder catch up run? Just spitballing here

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I know this may not help, but there is no rule that says a 5 star character would only have a single 4 star feeder. Considering the massive plethora of four stars to five star characters out there, I could imagine them deliberately giving a five star character two feeders and still not feeding another five star character just to troll us.

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Did that Jessica Jones feeder coincide with any Young Avengers/Chavez related news? It’s possible the chain of causation went the other way on that one.

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I cannot view your table at all…

The rate is an average of one per month.

The first month, November, could easily have been a “launch with a bang” month where they had 3.

Then one each month until April where they might have had 2 in part for BP’s video release (OML being the other one). Shortly after BP they released Peggy (who had her first comic appearance then) feeding Cap FA. Both of these (BP and Cap) also were right around Infinity War.

June and July, one in each month.

August is the “wow MCU” month. One assumes the devs were incentivized to do something exciting around the celebration and a whole mess of feeders was a pretty good way to do that.

September was skipped, presumably since August had so many.

Neither America nor JJ had a special event in October, but it was the game’s Anniversary.

GR for Halloween…obvious…one day before November. Averages out to one between the two months (Oct + Nov).

Dec, one. Ock, rework, Spiderverse gives a reason for him.

Jan, one. Surfer, FF month gives rationale.

So out of 15 months, 10 basically had one feeder per month. (April had two, but the game’s one original character was put into a print comic which seems like cause for celebration and changing the pattern a little.)

Looking for a special reason for feeders doesn’t work early on, but maybe now they are trying to do that more now? It’s really hard to say.

We will see when the next one arrives. I’m still wondering about Carol getting one over the next week or so.

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Sure, why not. That’s a pretty easy calculation. I’ll call the column “5* Age,” defined as the age of the 5* character when the feeder was introduced.

Since it’s a bit of a pain to paste an image, here’s a copy of the spreadsheet so you can play with it yourself:

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This list gives us some good speculation that Captain Marvels 5 star feeder might be coming out soon as opposed to another five star getting a feeder.
First off, we are overdue a feeder or two. 61 Days and counting. The longest period of time since the introduction of feeders.
It seems when a prominent character is out in a movie they have gotten a feeder rather quickly and they delayed a little to find the right time to introduce the feeder. Exp: Loki/Wasp. Also Bearded Cap and Okoye were rather fresh and movie orientated when they got a feeder.
They seem to have a pattern of a newer 5 star gets a feeder and an old 5 star gets a feeder. Or two old and two new. Old five stars with no feeder are Doc Strange, Gambit, Banner, Archangel. New five stars are Kitty Pride, Carol, Kingpin, Cable, Doc Doom.

Carol is the only one that is in the movies right now. So I think there is a good chance she is the next one that gets a feeder.
So speculation for Carol is either 4 star Carol; the new four star Talos; or Nick Fury.
This list shows a four star has never been used as a feeder unless it was in population by at least 72 days. So if Carol is the one that gets a new feeder in the next few days, that feeder won’t be Talos.
Carol is not listed as a member of SHIELD in the game. So that does seem to reduce the chances of Fury being the feeder.
When Wasp came out, they made it rain her feeder Antman.
Currently, Carol has a feed pattern of 2 Star >3 Star > 4 Star.. So why not make it feed the five star? They have been making it rain the small Carols. It rather makes sense.

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It’s technically 1.35 a month, including our current largest dry spell since they started adding feeders.

17 months
23 characters

More specifically 477 days with 23 characters. One character about every 21 days.

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Hopefully they use the excuse of Endgame to do another wave of feeders like the celebration in August. Not that I’ll be holding my breath.

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To me, speculating on when 5-star feeders will arrive, and which 4-stars will feed them, is like standing in the desert and trying to predict when rain will arrive and guessing how much will fall. There are indicators, but all we can really do is wait patiently through the droughts and celebrate the arrivals.

Speculating is fun, but that’s all we’ll ever have. The developers have shown no hard and fast rules on when feeders arrive or who they’ll be. I don’t anticipate that will change.

16

I would like to see the game get to the point where every classic 5* has a feeder and each new 5* is given a feeder when it leaves latest. I suppose that’s too logical and consistent to ever happen though.

17

This.

I think we also really need to stop heavily relying on the “This happened before so it will always be that way” train of thought. Amazon Digital Day put a firm nail in that coffin for those who jumped in before checking the water.

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https://forums.505go.com/categories/theories-and-statistics

Thread will be moved to this sub soon. Just want people to know it exists, very fun stuff!

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Ok, I put the link to the Google Drive spreadsheet into the initial post (and put in the edited spreadsheet too, it initially was one that wasn’t formatted too well.)

Incidentally, the 5* age seems to be all over the place. I think at this point they’re largely going with 5*s that match up to something in the game (a redesign,) the comics, or the movies. Otherwise, they’re probably pretty random.