How much would you have to pay to cover a 5*?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Someone in a forum thread asked if anyone had ever calculated how much it would cost to buy a 5*. Well, that got me to thinking. How can you buy 5*’s? And how much would it cost?

Well here we go. I figured I’d start with you choosing a 5* you want to cover and it being a classic. If you’re not picky and you will settle for any 5* fully covered (which we’ll cover in another installment), the expected cost decreases meaningfully.

PART 1: Impatient Unlucky Rich Newbie Buy Strategy for Covering a Specific Classic 5* from Scratch

CP is the only way to directly buy covers:

-For 20 CP (a classic token) you can effectively “buy” 3 shards, or 3/500ths of a colorless cover. It would take 500/3 or 166.7 purchases to get enough shards for 1 cover. This equates (at the classics rate) to 166.7 x 20 = 3,332 CP per cover

-For 720 CP, you can buy a cover for any color as long as you already have 1 of that cover.

Obviously 720 is much better than 3,332, so I’ll need one of each color using shards, then I can buy the remaining 10 using direct CP purchase.

1500 shards / 3 shards per classic = 500 classic pulls (none of which are the 5* we want)

500 classic pulls x 20 CP per pull = 10,000 CP for the initial 3 covers, then 720 CP x 10 = 7,200 CP for the remaining 10, totaling 17,200 CP for all 13.

You can buy 7 CP for $100 (you can pick whether that comes with 20K HP or 78K ISO). This is a newbie, so let’s assume for the moment he/she doesn’t know about buy clubs.

17,200 CP / 7 = 2,457.14, rounded up to 2,458 x $100 each = $245,800

Did you know your covered 5*s were worth so much? And some of you are F2P!

PART 2: Impatient Unlucky Rich Newbie Buy Strategy for Covering a Specific Classic 5* from Scratch with Buy Club help

Same as Part 1, but now, thanks to the buy club, the Newbie gets 140 CP for every $100.

17,200 CP / 140 = 122.9, rounded up to 123 x $100 each = $12,300

I could buy a lightly used Ferrari with that savings! Even a mega whale would have to notice that. Now if only you could find 140 buy clubs where all 20 people reliably made the $100 purchase every time.

PART 3 and Beyond

In later parts I’ll work to incorporate some of the other ways to get covers.

Some are direct but not guaranteed:

-You could naturally pull a cover for the 5* you want covered. The chances of naturally pulling a latest you want from latests ( 15% / 3 = 5% ) are much greater than the chances of pulling a classic you want from classics ( 15% / 41 = 0.37%), so even though the CP cost per pull is higher (25 vs 20), the specific expected covers per CP are much greater (5% / 25 = 0.20 vs 0.37% / 20 = 0.02)

Some are guaranteed but not always available:

-4* feeders (not every 5* has a feeder)

-For 250 or 500 CP, you can buy a cover IF it is featured in the HfH store (but you can only buy one cover once)

-For increasing HP, you can buy up to 400 shards (80% of a cover) IF it is in your daily shard offers

-You can earn shards in PvP and PvE but the characters rotate and may not be the one you want

2

Wow…

3

A simple démonstration of wealth disparity. Thanks.

4

I have no idea how often buy clubs happen, nor how hard it is to get everyone to spend $100, but I assume they are humming along with Poccy and Hulk being in Latests.

Anyway, mostly you’ve demonstrated how utterly hopeless it is to cover most Classics at this point and how utterly foolish it would be to do so via spending and pulling there.

Yesterday I was ballparking how much it would cost to cover all 3 Latests using cash to buy CP in buy clubs and came out with about $6K for all 3 (assuming decent distribution, and probably sharding at least one of them to make sure you got to 13). Still a lot of money and ridiculous! I have only bought VIP for the past few months and my Hulk is about to get to 12 covers. Yelena is 10 with 1 1/2 saved in shards, Poccy is 7 with one in shards being held.

But anyway, you’re talking about 12K+ for one single Classic vs 6K for all 3 Latests. Utterly ridiculous.

I have no idea how many whales are in buy clubs (I estimate probably up to 200 who do it all the time? maybe 300?) but the game takes in approx a million a month, I think, between Android (700K) and iPhone. I suppose Steam with its 350 odd players throws some money at the game too. However, the estimate of total players is about 250K. If they made VIP better you might get more buy in at the $10 a month level, which simply isn’t that much really for most people. And that would be $2.5 million right there if you got everyone to buy it. Imagine if VIP gave you one single cover for a Classic (random token) per month. There are 41, soon to be 42 Classic 5’s which equals 546 covers to get them all to 13, or approx 45 years of VIP. :smiley:

Of course, we know the majority of people spend $0. Oh well, it’s a weird business model IMO.

5

If we were to frame things by asking these two questions:

How much disposable cash do you have? How much is your time worth?

Assuming 200 working hours per month:

  1. If you earn $2000 a month and save 40% of your salary, it will take you 16 months to save that amount ($12,300). ($10/hour).

  2. If you earn $20,000 a month and save 40% of your salary, it will take you 1.5 months to save that amount. ($100/hour)

  3. $100,000 per month or $500/hour, it takes you 3 days to reach that amount.

As a 100% FTP, I’m confident that 100% FTP competitive players will be able to save enough LT and CP to pull for all 3 latest characters within 360 in-game days. Play time would be about 12 hours per week and it will reduce as your roster gets stronger. That’s approximately 624 hours a year to champ 3* latest 5*.

For the above three scenarios, 624 hours of playtimes are worth:

  1. $6240
  2. $62400
  3. $312, 000

For scenario two or three, it’s worth it to spend $12,300 to cover latest 3 5* right now rather than spending 624 hours playing competitively to champ 3 latest 5* because of their earning power. For scenario 1, it’s faster to play competitively for 624 hours rather than save $12,300 to champ three latest 5*.

6

I would gladly start purchasing VIP monthly if I felt the rewards (not only there but in general) were able to keep me at a steady pace. It would be about the equivalent of one AAA game every year and I’d likely get more play time out of MPQ than said AAA. If I were truly satisfied with my progress, I might even purchase the occasional deal.

The realization that tier bloat is an inevitability has instead pushed me to go straight F2P (along with the current, worsening rewards structure). I simply can not justify purchasing anything in the game when there’s this constant shadow of it failing because the 20% (or whatever non-whale spenders contribute) stop spending and the player base keeps sinking. To be clear, I WANT to pay the devs for the product, I just don’t think it’s worth the same thing they or the accounting dept think it is.

7

To answer this question I dusted off my old mpq simulation code by replacing bonus heroes with shards. The simulation was performed as follows:

  • Select a target 5-Star character.

  • Set the 4-Star target to the best feeder of the 5-Star target. If there is none, use Wolverine (X-Force).

  • Set the 3-Star target to the best feeder of the 4-Star target. If there is none, use Wolverine (Patch).

  • Start with a completely empty, unlimited roster with unlimited Iso-8

  • Repeat the following steps until the target 5-Star character can be championed:

  • If there is a heroic, mighty, legendary token or enough CP for a classic of latest token, open it.

  • Otherwise, buy a heroic 40-pack for 11400 HP if possible.

  • Otherwise, buy 20000 HP + 7 (or 140 in a buy club) CP

  • All covers are applied, characters are champed if possible and champion rewards are collected. Max champs are sold to be recruited again.
    Three different strategies were considered:

  • Buy latest tokens for 25 CP

  • Buy classic tokens for 20 CP

  • Do not buy and tokens and buy covers directly for 720 CP

I performed simulations for each current 5-Star character, for each of the three strategies, and for the two possibilities of purchasing all HP bundles in a buy club or not. I did 1000 random runs for each setting and recorded the mean and standard deviation of the number of HP bundle purchases until the 5-Star target can be champed.

Here are some results:

Apocalypse (Classic) / buy latest / buyclub: 31.1 +/- 6.8
Apocalypse (Classic) / buy covers / buyclub: 45.0 +/- 11.4
Apocalypse (Classic) / buy latest / no buyclub: 82.9 +/- 22.3
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy covers / buyclub: 59.4 +/- 2.2
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy classic / buyclub: 82.0 +/- 9.8
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) / buy classic / no buyclub: 163.4 +/- 6.5

The full data can be seen here in csv-Format:

Character,CP Usage,Buyclub,Mean,Stddev
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.341,6.80887
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.602,7.2458
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,31.625,6.92115
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Covers,true,43.517,10.5997
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Covers,true,44.915,11.5849
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Covers,true,44.988,11.3812
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Covers,true,56.654,2.26236
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Covers,true,56.69,2.13492
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Covers,true,56.716,2.22291
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Covers,true,56.784,2.33267
Thor (Gladiator),buy Covers,true,56.789,2.26373
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Covers,true,56.805,2.30499
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Covers,true,56.883,2.22605
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Covers,true,56.939,2.2435
Gambit (Classic),buy Covers,true,56.944,2.23402
Professor X (Classic),buy Covers,true,56.947,2.28784
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Covers,true,56.967,2.2777
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Covers,true,56.978,2.23551
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Covers,true,57.007,2.33687
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Covers,true,57.01,2.2356
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Covers,true,57.02,2.25424
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Covers,true,57.025,2.20009
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Covers,true,57.032,2.23047
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Covers,true,57.05,2.19442
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Covers,true,57.065,2.29102
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Covers,true,57.07,2.22556
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Covers,true,57.076,2.16754
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Covers,true,57.084,2.18562
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Covers,true,57.102,2.17844
Archangel (Classic),buy Covers,true,57.105,2.33751
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Covers,true,57.122,2.25768
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Covers,true,57.143,2.1782
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Covers,true,59.119,2.06127
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Covers,true,59.226,1.99372
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Covers,true,59.398,2.16739
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Covers,true,59.408,2.25201
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Covers,true,59.506,2.26759
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Covers,true,59.509,2.23873
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Covers,true,59.514,2.25562
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Covers,true,59.573,2.18281
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Covers,true,61.166,1.55256
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Covers,true,61.189,1.60102
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Covers,true,61.332,1.44353
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.163,13.027
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.283,13.2331
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,67.292,13.1614
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.045,9.84901
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.074,9.71136
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.075,9.75035
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.116,9.6736
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.129,9.73213
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.13,9.88176
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.165,9.95931
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.218,9.84482
Thor (Gladiator),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.231,9.72757
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.319,9.79128
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.35,9.86577
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.361,9.61294
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.409,10.1617
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.426,10.0286
Archangel (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.446,9.84292
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.519,10.002
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.549,9.73055
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.569,9.7651
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.586,9.75923
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.634,9.83829
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.646,9.89468
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.721,9.90137
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.781,9.67104
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.809,9.9753
Gambit (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.891,10.0194
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Classic Tokens,true,81.92,10.1808
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.003,9.8242
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.171,9.69741
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.211,9.7344
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.238,9.67509
Professor X (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.291,10.0102
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.38,9.63211
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Latest Tokens,false,82.537,20.8198
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.635,9.81396
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Classic Tokens,true,82.856,9.85298
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,82.915,22.2871
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.014,9.62226
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.188,9.44969
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Classic Tokens,true,83.302,9.54876
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Latest Tokens,false,83.403,21.2361
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Covers,false,87.072,21.2256
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Covers,false,87.254,21.0774
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Covers,false,88.777,20.2478
The Hulk (Immortal),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.668,23.4829
Apocalypse (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.899,22.5518
Yelena Belova (Black Widow),buy Classic Tokens,false,96.952,23.1689
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.737,0.87626
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.742,0.824279
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.744,0.855841
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.778,0.845409
Thor (Gladiator),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.78,0.84119
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.808,0.878143
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.827,0.836105
Professor X (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.831,0.839309
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.852,0.884362
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.852,0.841484
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.856,0.904027
Archangel (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.862,0.892724
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.881,0.952281
Gambit (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.889,0.889201
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.893,0.819482
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.905,0.937003
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.909,0.901509
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.911,0.864337
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.912,0.910086
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.921,0.913651
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.934,0.918501
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.938,0.911129
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.953,0.877947
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.956,0.885474
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.956,0.951874
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Latest Tokens,true,104.975,0.871995
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.308,1.70386
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.31,1.98844
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.333,2.03178
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.393,1.81178
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.394,1.93772
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.426,1.9881
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.428,2.0201
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Latest Tokens,true,105.493,2.10712
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.674,2.69179
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.778,2.66059
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Latest Tokens,true,106.828,2.69489
Havok (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,true,136.423,17.022
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Classic Tokens,true,136.864,17.0775
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Classic Tokens,true,137.084,17.0283
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Classic Tokens,true,137.239,17.0943
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Covers,false,146.092,2.93965
Professor X (Classic),buy Covers,false,146.391,3.20595
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Covers,false,146.525,3.24151
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Covers,false,146.554,3.14024
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Covers,false,146.556,3.15925
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Covers,false,146.581,2.96099
Thor (Gladiator),buy Covers,false,146.66,3.14681
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Covers,false,146.69,2.98461
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Covers,false,146.733,3.12245
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Covers,false,147.048,3.13874
Gambit (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.113,3.14615
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Covers,false,147.129,3.08583
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Covers,false,147.16,3.09684
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Covers,false,147.162,3.10447
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Covers,false,147.165,3.17266
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.195,3.03298
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Covers,false,147.197,3.07281
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Covers,false,147.226,3.00115
Archangel (Classic),buy Covers,false,147.249,2.9995
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Covers,false,147.268,3.11579
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Covers,false,147.27,2.91017
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Covers,false,147.303,3.1105
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Covers,false,147.313,3.04418
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Covers,false,147.329,2.82538
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Covers,false,147.411,2.96143
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Covers,false,147.434,2.96676
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Covers,false,152.015,2.93782
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Covers,false,152.213,3.26399
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Covers,false,152.434,3.02781
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Covers,false,152.488,3.01991
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Covers,false,152.525,2.98218
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Covers,false,152.562,2.9692
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Covers,false,152.613,3.07526
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Covers,false,152.763,3.28859
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Covers,false,155.128,2.67388
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Covers,false,155.202,2.5755
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Covers,false,155.281,2.87855
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Classic Tokens,false,159.98,8.69101
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.114,8.50382
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.364,8.29527
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.469,8.54933
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.471,8.48016
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.523,8.46685
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.56,8.42119
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.571,8.55646
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.634,8.20159
Professor X (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.639,8.47247
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.656,7.96704
Gambit (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.712,7.7731
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.724,8.27042
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.732,8.23506
Thor (Gladiator),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.74,8.52106
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.766,7.87015
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.811,7.98945
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.842,8.34967
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.851,8.13307
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.894,7.75002
Archangel (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.9,7.77535
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.917,8.01075
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Classic Tokens,false,160.97,7.97378
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.002,7.92931
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.046,8.26558
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Classic Tokens,false,161.348,7.73349
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Classic Tokens,false,162.884,6.51618
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.212,6.78595
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.234,6.44261
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.256,6.69003
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.339,6.45539
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.369,6.81094
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.374,6.53316
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Classic Tokens,false,163.387,6.8789
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.716,6.8559
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.813,6.75145
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Classic Tokens,false,166.937,6.32653
Wolverine (Old Man Logan),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.701,2.24045
Rescue (Pepper Potts),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.808,2.02611
Hawkeye (Clint Barton),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.88,2.11792
Wasp (Hope Van Dyne),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.89,2.02433
Archangel (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.896,2.02958
Captain America (Infinity War),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.898,2.12358
Kingpin (Spider-Verse),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.945,1.98242
Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.953,1.93515
Thor (Gladiator),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.961,2.19624
Captain Marvel (Galactic Warrior),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.986,2.16652
The Hulk (Bruce Banner),buy Latest Tokens,false,169.987,2.207
Captain America (First Avenger),buy Latest Tokens,false,170,2.0489
Professor X (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.005,2.08206
Thanos (The Mad Titan),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.009,2.04326
Gambit (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.01,1.96568
Doctor Octopus (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.015,1.95877
Cable (Nathan Summers),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.023,2.00711
Black Bolt (Inhuman King),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.029,1.88259
Daredevil (Matt Murdock),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.041,2.14507
Silver Surfer (Skyrider),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.054,1.96751
Hela (Goddess of Death),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.056,1.87746
Iron Man (Mark XLVI),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.098,1.88637
Doctor Doom (God Emperor),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.103,1.86558
Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.114,1.99875
Storm (Ororo Munroe),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.132,2.11863
Iceman (Bobby Drake),buy Latest Tokens,false,170.227,1.9446
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.008,1.47714
Jean Grey (Phoenix),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.037,2.00191
Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.13,1.46051
Black Panther (Civil War),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.157,1.50942
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.173,1.49969
Spider-Man (Back in Black),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.19,1.81491
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.409,1.50457
Havok (Classic),buy Covers,true,171.44,1.48472
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Covers,true,171.441,1.47734
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Covers,true,171.494,1.47172
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Covers,true,171.513,1.43312
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Covers,true,171.515,1.49659
Loki (God of Mischief),buy Latest Tokens,false,171.573,1.43341
Jessica Jones (Alias Investigations),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.861,2.20673
Spider-Man (Peter Parker),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.916,2.31667
Okoye (Warrior General),buy Latest Tokens,false,172.964,2.19059
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Classic Tokens,true,181.913,0.682225
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.865,0.872224
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.88,0.903106
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.888,0.889638
Havok (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.901,0.908405
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Latest Tokens,true,198.902,0.903546
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Covers,false,245.406,1.75361
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Covers,false,245.445,1.71493
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Covers,false,245.45,1.74685
Havok (Classic),buy Covers,false,245.508,1.72393
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Covers,false,245.511,1.76632
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Classic Tokens,false,351.2,32.2814
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Classic Tokens,false,351.621,33.6504
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Classic Tokens,false,352.655,32.5525
Havok (Classic),buy Classic Tokens,false,352.731,31.8281
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Classic Tokens,false,405.91,2.43596
Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.91,2.27418
Havok (Classic),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.91,2.34177
Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.919,2.29487
Carnage (Prophet of Knull),buy Latest Tokens,false,424.959,2.27185
Onslaught (Psionic Entity),buy Latest Tokens,false,425.14,2.32517

8

Man… I appreciate your math but I don’t agree with your reasoning. Building a 5* from scratch can be done much cheaper via shards (insanely expensive still) you just need to wait for the char rotation (2 per day) but you would get there relatively fast.

On the same subject, I have a question. Its almost a retorical one. What is the point of buying a 5* in this game? I mean, I understand some of the advantages, but what I don’t understand is that if you put 1k or 10k into the game you will still need to keep playing daily hours to keep up with the new chars. For that cash the reward should be much bigger…

9

@MadScientist
If those are dollars, there’s no way that it costs 31K +/- 6K to champ a Latests in a buy club. At least not by my back-of-envelope math.

If you assume you need 21 pulls to get a cover for 3 Latests, that 525 CP. You need that 13 times so thats 6,825 CP. (averaging out your 5 rate over 273+87(more on that in a bit), or 360 pulls, should get you pretty close to a 15% drop rate.) Buying that using buy clubs at 140CP/$100 is 48.75 buy clubs or about $4900.

I think shards would make up any shortfall (target the one you really want, after 273 pulls you are close to 2 covers. Maybe you end up spending (assuming no in game resources from play) a little more if you had really bad luck, but you also convert the 980K HP you bought in to 87.5 Heroic 40 packs so you are now over 2 covers from all the LTs you also can pull. So you effectively need 11 covers. Bad builds and all that but barring that bad luck (and not being able to make up for it with those two colorless covers) it seems like about $5k for one single champed 5, or at least 360 pulls. Odds are you also got another one champed or very close.

Did I miss something?

Obviously for most people the return on $5k for a champed 5 or 2 (or 3) isn’t very good at all, as you didn’t skip the playing. But you would have bigger 5’s than almost any non-whale and for a lot of people who are willing to spend thousands on the game, it’s about competitiveness and being bigger and better than other players. Their goal is not efficiency/time saving, it’s about domination. So yeah, they play as much or more than anyone else. (Note: If you assume you are playing enough to almost-champ any 5 anyway, your costs stabilize around $4900 since you can probably fix any bad builds with shards from PVE and just the additional pulls you earned from playing).

10

The numbers I indicated are the number of HP bundles that you have to buy. For example, in the Apoc / buy latest / buyclub line it means that you have to buy an average of 31 (thirty-one) bundles which would cost $3100. This number lines up with you bote-calculation, no?

Of course, there may be bugs in my code but the qualitative behavior of the results look ok.

11

Humm… Even if you regularly champ all 5*s, 13 covers would only get you to 463 lv… What I mean is: 13 extra covers won’t get you far. Mb what I really want to say is: a lot of $$$ won’t get you far in the game. And that’s a bad thing imo.

12

These amounts of money are simply staggering. Perhaps more worryingly is the nonchalant way it is all being discussed!

13

I’m just here for having an excuse to write a monte carlo simulation ::tongue:

14

Makes sense, I was misinterpreting your results/numbers. Thanks for the clarification!

15

The House definitely wins…

16

So what my take away from this is, with 40 champed 5s, if it were not against TOS to do so, asking $492,000 for my account would actually be at a discount!

Edit!

Just pulled my 13th iHulk cover, so my account value is well over 500k now!

17

Throw in some Mighty tokens and you will have people queueing up for that bargain…

18

Absolutely ridiculous that it is against TOS to sell your account/resources. If there were some real monetary value to the purchases people would spend much more IMO. See some MMOs where the economy is that of a small country.

19

Jp1, it’s actually standard practice across most, if not all games to disallow transferring or selling of accounts and resources. Look at all the EULA and it’s practically guaranteed that it’s the case.
Simply because second hand sales don’t contribute to the bottom line.

20

They don’t contribute directly. Indirectly, people may spend more and others that don’t spend because it is a “waste” might be willing to invest in something that they could recoup some part of later. Also, a new player that wants a well developed roster and is willing to spend money for it is the type of player that is now likely to make future purchases.

I agree though, many companies don’t think big picture.