My plan: skip the 4* transition completely

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

There have been a ton of posts detailing how ridiculous the 4* growth/reward ratio is, and how it makes the 4* transition almost unplayable, but it turns out there’s no reason to worry about it.

I’m still a 3* transitioner, with ~80% of all 3* covers but unfortunately (or working as intended?) not the ‘best’ ones for PvP. I have every 3* and every 4* with 1-4 covers. I also have an SS with 3 covers. Note: My best 5 has essentially the same # of covers as my 4*s.* (and this isn’t about the exploit or ridiculous luck on my part)

I can’t earn any 4* covers directly due to reasons posted everywhere already, so I rely on LTs from PvE (and CP from PvE) for 4* development. But current LTs have a 3.3% chance of any particular 5* character, and a 4.5% chance of any particular 4* character. So by the time I have any 13-cover 4*, I’ll likely have an ~8 cover 5*. It’s a no-brainer which to pour ISO into and use:

  • The 8-cover 5* is already as good as or better than most 13-cover 4*s, especially since it’s harder and harder to get the ‘right’ 13 covers vs. a ‘good’ distribution of 8 covers.
  • The 5* still has room to grow and improve with more covers.
  • As more 4s are added, my chances of fully covering the one(s) I want get worse and worse, and they’re already almost equal to 5 chances.

I’m actually about to skip the 3* transition as well, since by the time I fully cover the ‘best’ 3s I’ll likely have better options with a 5-6 cover 5.

It’s nice to have powerful 5s, but it would also be nice to play with various teams and configurations as I build my roster through normal play. I’ve put in $100 for roster spots for essentials, but not whaled any particular covers (which obviously changes this dynamic), and I’m on day 223, so not even a year in and it’s looking more and more like I’ll never really use any 4s. That makes me a little sad.

2

Not a terrible idea. I look forward to hearing how it works for you…

3

me too. if you pve heavily (sounds like primarily), I’m curious how your performance/scaling will be affected when the second and third 5s are added to your roster. from what I’ve heard, if you have a good group of maxed 166s, one or two 255s don’t kill you, but if you lack 3 strength at the top what I’ve heard is it gets hard, but that doesn’t sound like its the case for you at all.

4

I had softcapped myself at 120, and with 2 5s the scaling was brutal. Yay heroics! (5s not allowed so don’t affect scaling) I consistently place t50 and earn the LT in 3 or 4-day events, and that became much harder after I rostered my 2nd 5*.

I’ve since pushed 6 3s to 166 or close (as covers allow), and things are not so bad. I’m fighting ~lvl 250s in the top 3 nodes after the first clear, and there are some nodes I need supreme luck to finish. I’ll never get t10 again because I can’t really grind due to healthpacks, but I can still hit the LT or t100-t50 for a needed 3 cover.

What got killed was the PvP matching, which is part of the reason I play more PvE. I simply can’t compete against full-level boosted 3*/4* teams that I’m being matched with, which is why I can’t get 4* covers to be able to compete with them… hmmm…

I have some hope that if I finish some ‘good’ 3s (cyclops is my closest) I’ll be able to hit 800 in PvP once in a while again, but that’s circular as well, because by then I won’t need the 800pt reward. I don’t see a path to 1000 until after I already have a strong 4 team, at which time I should have an even stronger 5* team and still have no use for any 4*s that have developed in that time.

I mostly posted this to highlight an undiscussed aspect of the FUBAR 4*/5* situation: Individual 5s are really not much more rare than any individual 4 given the current reality of non-pay-to-win progression (LT only), but are MUCH more powerful.

5

When I crunched the numbers for 4*, I had a similar conclusion to you - there’s no point in making the transition when a 2* player can save up 200 legendary tokens from PvE and get on average 20 covers (or 3 covers, if your luck is as good as mine). However, that didn’t factor in one giant issue:

What will be the nail in the coffin (and why anyone who whaled SS and OML is really smart) is the same problem that plagues 4* transitioners today - more characters. A new 4* sets a player back quite a bit, but a new 5* is even more problematic. Two new 5*s will give you a 2% chance per character per token. When you have a 1/50 shot in a legendary token of getting the character you want, that will slow you down considerably. Doing only PvE, at 6/month, you’re talking getting a cover you want every 8.5 months. When it was SS and OML only, you had a 1/20 shot (1 cover every 3.5 months). If, during the course of those 8 months, 5 additional characters are released and you’re down to a 1/100 shot of the character you want, then now you’re talking over 1.3 years per cover.

6

i think for many players in the transition the odds are much better that youll have a 6-8 cover silver surfer long before a 12-13 cover iceman, rulk, etc. in the next 12 months.

its really really stupid at this point. the number of 4* with that number only increasing makes building a 4* from tokens in a timely fashion nigh impossible. its only a matter of how many 5s are on the way to dilute that pool and how much they change the overall 5 draw rate %.

7

Yeah, for players that only play PVE, this is basically the only path of progression. It wasn’t the best idea to put LT tokens in PVE in the first place, but it’s even worse that this is the PVE player’s only choice at this point.

8

Keep in mind though: 5* seem to be stuck at a 10% draw rate from LT’s. When it was just SS and OML, the rate was 5% each. Now with Phoenix it’s 3.3% each. With the next release, it will drop to 2.5%, and so on. So your draw rate for hitting SS is only going to go down.

9

Hmm, this seems like a pretty viable option given the current layout. With a 2* roster you could likely place high enough in PvE to earn a LT every event as well as a steady stream of CP.

My wife has been playing for a couple months now and is starting to have a decent 2* roster. I might recommend she do this as well. Save up like 200 LTs then just open them all at once and hope you don’t get completely boned by RNGesus.

10

I actually do play PvP quite a bit, getting the 10-pack in each of the last 3 seasons. But I can’t do well enough to earn 4s because I don’t have the 4 roster to do so. I could probably make it with the right maxed 3s, a lot of LINE coordination, and a lot of HP for shields, but that doesn’t sound like much fun to me. It’s yet another reason there’s no viable 4 transition.

This is definitely a situation that will change as they create characters, but assuming that they go to 40 4s like they did 3s and keep 90% 4*, then we’re talking about 2.25% per 4* at that point. If 5s were equal in power to 4s, then at 5 or more 5s available, the odds would be essentially equal. But I say 5s are at least 2x more powerful, and more like 3-4x, especially once you consider that the last few 4* covers for any character will be much less likely than 6th or 7th usable 5* cover for any particular character. So I estimate that once they have ~15 5s in the game, it’ll be worth it to develop 4s, but that seems like a LONG way off.

In any case, it’s not like I’m doing anything active here. I’ll hold my ISO and see what develops cover-wise, but it’s just the natural consequence of the game that I don’t think I’ll ever meaningfully use 4* characters. I did baby-whale roster spots, so I have the luxury of not having to choose between rostering 4s and 5s, but if I did have to make the choice, I’d definitely go with 5*s (duh).

11

It will work if you keep getting lucky for a while. Once more 5s are added, the problem of dilution will be introduced to the 5 tier and getting the covers you specifically want is going to be more and more difficult.

12

considering how hard it will be to get 5* covers, I don’t think it is realistic to skip 4* transition altogether. I’m only looking from the perspective of obtaining covers. Heroics & event tokens give you a pretty decent chance at 4* cover, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to carry some 4s on your roster, particularly if you play pve.

For me personally, I focus primarily on pve. I have obtained the LT from every pve event so far, and I try to get as many CPs from nodes and sub placement as possible. So far I have cashed in cps for 6 LTs, and I have enough cps for 3 more LTs currently. And I’m placing T2 in most pves, getting the 4* cover as well.

13

Interesting. The fact that we’re even discussing this makes for a compelling argument in the case as to why they should consider making the 4 star game easier to get into.

14

Exactly. Amusingly though, at the current pace it will be easier to get a particular 5* from a LT than a particular 4*. With 3 5s sharing 10% (3.33% each), it will only take 30 4s to have the same odds (evenly splitting the remaining 90%). At 25 4s (about where we are now, iirc) it’s already a 3.6% shot at a particular 4.

15

Coincidently, back when there were only 3 4 stars, and they were adding a new 3 star every other week, it got bad enough that the 4 star.png
odds were actually greater then the specific 3 star.png
odds.

Then came 4or, Elektra, and Star Lord to fix that.

16

I’m really close to the 1 year mark (day 353) and I only have 1 4* at 13 covers (fisk, and it’s not optimal nor a powerhouse). Back in Aug, I would have been in your situation with most of my 3* maxed and all 4* with little to no covers at all. What I would suggest is to concentrate more on pvp. Hit those 1k progress rewards and dial back your pve to the legendary tokens and the two command points each sub (unless it’s a new release event). Just looking at my gamependium history, the last 3-4 months I have gotten way more 4* covers each month (would have been slightly more if I didn’t pull so many duplicates as gamependium only track covers you recruited, unless you decides to recruit all duplicates) than I did each quarter before then.

2015
8-9 months before 65 covers
Sept 17 covers (slightly low because I only started using this 10 days into the month, so the figure is 2/3 of a full month. So take 8-9 covers from the above to make it a full month)
Oct 40 covers
Nov 44 covers

None of my 4* are above level 166. So you can still save your iso for 5* and level them instead.

I only have 6 5* covers, so on average, that’s 2 each month.

edit: Numbers of useful covers are dropping as I’m well into the 4* transition, also harder to track the figures now that some covers are shown as levels when championed

Dec 50 covers

2016
Jan 47 covers - actual numbers may be higher since I’m now getting more dupes
Feb 33 covers - stopped opening legendary tokens to avoid the dupes
Mar 30 covers
Apr 37 covers
May 105 covers - spent 2000 command points on classic tokens

I have 26 5* covers now, so that’s 20 in the last 6 months (though they were all random from the pulls bar 2 from civil war)

Jun 60 covers - pulled the latest tokens
Jul 27 covers - back to hoarding command points but I’m opening latest legendary tokens

36 5* covers now, that’s 10 more from the last two months.

Aug 40 covers
Sep 33 covers
Oct 50 covers - this is high, might have been the anniversary?
Nov 32 covers
Dec 65 covers - also high, I did pull a stash of 166 tacos. Though this only accounted for 3

41 5* covers, that’s one each month, basically lone cover of each release

Future progress updatehere

17

I appreciate the reply, and I’d love to follow your suggestion. In fact, I’ve already dialed back the PvE as you mentioned but I don’t see any reasonable way to hit those 1K progress rewards.

This is now getting a little OT from my original post, but I’ve read and attempted most of the guides and tips out there, but without top-tier 3s (which I’ll get in a few months, probably) and without huge coordination/joining a more hard-core alliance, I don’t really see it as possible. I can’t even reliably hit the 725 HP reward lately. Before rostering my 1st 5 I was just getting able to hit 800 if I timed my push just right, but not against the teams I’m matched against now. Above about 600 I get stuck in maxed 4* hell regardless of skip amount.

If I could reliably push to 800+, and if I could quickly beat maxed 4* teams after that for points, then I’d probably be willing to do a double-shield (or even triple) hop to get 1K and a known 4* cover, even if I net -100s of HP per cover (not a bad price). But I can’t do either of those first 2 things yet. No (prime-time) IF, Cage, KK, SW, Blade, or Hood. My Cyc is close, but being 153 and one cover short makes me too juicy.

Maybe you have additional tips for reliably hitting 1K?

18

As a 3*- 4* transitioner who is getting close to covering most useful 3s and slowly leveling them to 166 I totally understand this. My roster is full of 1-3 cover 4 that are mostly useless except for the essentials in PVE. Even then they are just a waste in the essentials as I have to make a 2-hero team to float them.

Still having trouble hitting the 1k in PVP for a million reasons mentioned elsewhere on the forum. Still learning the fine art of the shield how, and the enduring Winfinite, FistBuster and JeanBuster beatdowns.

The only thing I think might save the 4* transition is to add a tough (but winable) node in DDQ, with specific covers for 4s on rotation. Kinda like a “Bigger Enchilada” so that people have a chance of covering the 4s (not to mention the iso problem to upgrade them but that is a different story…)

just my 2 cents…

19

I posted this before but I’ll repeat it here (edited to better fit the current discussion)

20

That’s where I am. I believe in your advice, Pongie, I just can’t make it work because I can’t climb over 800 and I can’t beat the 4* teams after shielding. Obviously it can be done, much like finishing top 2 in PvE can be done. I just can’t do it (yet), and I don’t think most players can either. I hope to get there, but I suspect that the team I’ll use to finally break the 1000 pt barrier will have a 5-cover SS.