This seems likely to be the best LT pool in a very long time. That’s nice and makes the game feel rewards for those grinding hard now, but at what point does power creep become a concern?
And to the extent that it is, can rolling reworks on older 5*s mitigate that concern?
I’m gonna go buck wild when she comes to LTs. Hoard break for sure
There’s still 5* boosts so I’m not worrying it.
Power creep is great for newer players given that older characters are essentially beyond reach (other than baby champing them after a lot of work).
It’s also great for the developer too because all those players sitting on older 550’s are gonna break hoards or spend to get the new power creep characters to 550 ASAP in order to remain on top of the heap.
KGB
Before this, players were concerned about how many new 5* are bottom-tier/unusable. Now, we have players concerned about power creep…
If we go for average, it will be like Havok, good but forgettable and bland.
Which is the worst problem?
Both can be an issue depending on your strategy.
If you are somebody that just pulls classics then if newer characters start to improve faster then you are always gonna be outgunned saved for boosted characters.
If you are somebody that hoards or just pulls Latest then you expect characters to be better or at least as good considering you are paying a higher cost for those covers.
A classic case of you can’t please everybody.
It’s been a while where all the characters are B tier and above (assuming that Thor (Mighty) plays great. I feel confident that all of these characters are top 25 5* characters - and play well with others. This also fits the devs current strategy of building a wide tier - with lots of fun, pair-able characters - as opposed to launching into 6*.
While we are seeing the power creep inch up - I think that the inflation has been kept in check - IH/SW/Colussus era saw some serious swings in momentum. Now, things are at a gradual incline where characters can expect a ballpark 900-1000 match damage with 70K health (or a nice defensive component.
Power creep becomes a real concern if your first 5* champs are outdated and not useful even boosted. But if you’re chasing LL’s and spending your CP wisely (hoarding). Then you should worry less.
If anything, the current set of *5 characters seemed to be designed with the intention of expanding the meta.
Gargantos: CD tiles (Hawkeye, Coulson, 4* Captain Marvel)
Kamala Khan: Special tile generators (Apocalpyse, Beta Ray Bill, Polaris)
Mighty Thor: Charged tiles (5* Storm, Black Bolt, Throg)
All are above average so it’s very likely you will see them when god-boosted in PvP but I don’t think a player will get any more value from them when they are not boosted than they would from other B tier level characters (with the possible exception of Mighty Thor.)
For pick 2 PvP:
Gargantos + HE: Strong offensive team but unboosted lacks defensive teeth and can be taken out by iHulk/high Okoye or Shang-Chi teams.
Kamala runs into the problem that she pairs best with Apocalypse and BRB. The problem being they pair better together than they do with her. Between the two, she pairs best with Apocalypse because of his damage boost and generates more special tiles in general.
However, Apocalypse/Kamala is a significantly weaker defensive team than Apoc/BRB.
Not sure what to think of Mighty Thor beyond it looks like she has the highest potential to make a dent in the meta since her abilities counter Apoc/BRB/Scarlet Witch. From the top of my head, 5* Colossus seems like her best partner, especially if you have a big one. His match damage will benefit from the charged tiles and for the most part there is very little color overlap.
With that said, it’s not clear if any of them are going to break the current speed barrier for PvE. I know a lot of people are excited about Apoc/BRB/Kamala but I am not certain how it compares to Apoc/BRB/Polaris.
I suspect for initial clears, Apoc/BRB/Kamala is faster but for more difficult, higher level nodes Polaris is the better choice. Then again, it probably falls down to what sort of supports you are using. I guess we shall see!
This is a pretty spot-on, hype-free analysis. To add to F4TD’s take, I think that having these characters will be way more beneficial for those without a good set of 5’s. However, if you are a vet that already has a set of meta 5’s, these three aren’t going to change much of anything except for providing some variety of play.
(1) I don’t recall making any posts expressing “concern” about bottom feeding 5s; I tend to be more worried about things like the predatory business model of freemium games or the continued waste of dev energy in the extremely bloated 4 tier. So it’s a bit of a strawman to say that I complained about 5*s being too strong and too weak.
(2) do you think power creep is not a risk? You were around for original gambit, right? Was that healthy for the game overall?
(3) conversely, do you not think it would be a problem if every new 5* released were as strong as, say, 2* bullseye? I don’t think it’s controversial to assert that there is a somewhat narrow band of acceptable strength for 5*s and being on either side of that band could be a problem.
I’m not referring specifically to you, and I’m sure there’re other players who are concerned about power creep as well. I’m just pointing out that it’s not easy or it’s tricky to strike a balance.
To expand on that, my main premise is that players will always compare new 5* with other existing 5*. They typically compare them in this order:
Characters who don’t perform better or perform as well as the above criteria are typically ignored or categorised under “fun” or usable when boosted. The typical question asked is "Why would I want to use x character or x ability when the existing character is doing a better job than this new character? As you know, speed is the common factor used in the above comparisons.
Here are three typical subsets of characters:
1. New 5* are weak, unusable, underwhelming or DOA.
From 2020 to 2022, there were a big portion of such characters. The effects of such scenario caused some players to skip and continue hoarding. There are some who felt their wills to continue playing MPQ drained away slowly. Some of the feedbacks commonly heard is that the dev is afraid of making strong characters, or the dev is out of touch/doesn’t know how to play their games by releasing these weak characters.
2. A couple of meta characters but their effects on pvps and pves are enormous.
IHulkoye and Colossus/Wanda was so strong it made players feel like quitting pvps because of how slow matches were or how fast their healthpacks were drained. Counters that don’t shut down meta quickly were shunned away or ignored For example, Gamora or Electro. However, some of them speed up pves or acts as deterrents in pvps. The thing about meta is it makes many other non-meta irrelevant, in terms of speed.
3. Fun or good characters
The feelings are mixed. If you are a meta-chaser, many in this group are as good as underwhelming or non-existent. Non-competitive players might or might not enjoy them, depending on how fast they get things done.
What happens if all characters are either good or meta, and no weak character exists? Let’s say the ratio for good:meta is 2:1.
When majority of characters are good, naturally, as time past by, they become a norm. Norm is the same as average. Players get bored with average things because there are no excitement. There’re only dullness. It’s human nature to crave new and exciting things. Overtime, players will start to feel that the dev is afraid of making strong characters. In this case, every good characters will be perceived as 2* Bullseye.
In the end, players will want power creep to happen even more quickly due to how boring all these good characters are. The moment the dev releases another “good” character, they become bored.
I think a mix of trash, fine, good and meta characters will slow down power creep. A roller coaster ride is more exciting than a bullet train ride travelling in a straight path with on occasional minor upslope. Think of the typical formula of writing a Hollywood story and you can plot these 4 types of characters into the formula easily.
Anyway, I think it’s still too early to tell if the new team will speed up power creeps from the annual release of 2-3 meta to 4-6 meta. I think what they are doing now is what typical new games do: being generous and create excitement after excitement. The new dev is treating MPQ as if it’s a new game. Over time, you will start seeing the real deal.
First of all, to remark another time that those 3 are the new characters designed by the new devs, as it’s said. So nothing can assure that the next 5* will be really good too.
It can’t be 3 coincidences: those guys actually know what they are doing.
After saying that, I do believe that the rebalances they will do will be meaningful and every 5* will have his chance. Sadly we need to wait for that.
I also believe that the new 3* characters will be updated versions and will be far superiors that the current 3*s.
And now, about mighty thor. I think she is the character with most potential until now.
It won’t be fast, but she can counter apocalypse, SW, BRB, carnage, gargantos, kitty, polaris, KK… it’s hard to find a character who can’t be defeated by her on the due time.
It would be safe to say that she always will be the most dangerous foe in a team.
And that is a lot to say.
Those characters most likely are leftovers from Demiurge.
We know they take a few months to design characters, the ones designed by Broken Circle won’t be out until September I assume.
This. I suspect the first 5* characters coming from Broken Circle will be the ones being paired with the 3* release.
It was specifically noted in the dev announcement that broken circle had already been taking the reigns before the announcement. The first Garg boss event was already their creation. The announcement came not when broken circle first started working on the game, it came when Demiurge stopped working on the game, which is a big difference.
Also, to what Hound is saying, the forums gonna complain about every 5. They will either be too strong, too weak, or too bland. There is no character release that is going to please everyone.
Liking the Boss events supporting the new Fives. I champ them all so Gargantos event didn’t bother me. Hopefully the Five support stays alive in this manner.
It’s a huge help to get 2 5* covers.
Nobody would had believed it one year ago.
Even sometimes I still can’t believe it lol.
By the way right now there are many players worrying about active alliances in order to get those rewards.
And on mine there are a couple of strong players recently arriving and they won’t leave.
I find the sentence structures used for character previews seem to be very telling. I don’t remember past previews using words/phrases like:
“+2 aps” instead of generate 5 aps
“empower strength of Strike…” instead of increase strength of Strike…
“This match” instead of “this battle”
I noticed the change of vocabulary since KK’s character preview, and in her thread, I was talking about how the sentence structures were off.
I don’t remember anything off about Gargantos’ and Puck’s character previews.
If I were to make a guess using the above observations, I would say Gargantos and Puck were Demiurge’s last creations.
I’m a fan of power creep. They’ll have gone too far when some baby champed combo is used consistently over boosted 5s. Since Shang Chi, we’ve had some pretty good 5s mixed with a couple terrible ones, but we haven’t had any I felt like I need to chase. I want to feel like I need to chase. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Sitting on a hoard gets really boring.