So close, yet so far. 5*s, Luck, and Monetization

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Yes, it’s another 5* thread. But this one isn’t about how 5s are impacting matchups and scaling. This one is about how certain design choices have left the 5 implementation falling well short of the stated goals.

It was originally stated that 5*s were meant to be a form of long-term end game progression. They were intended to be a very strong set of characters that you’d build up over a period of time. That was a great idea, but the implementation has been hobbled by 2 very impactful features: Luck and Monetization.

Since they’re supposed to represent a meaningful, long term progression, the idea that 5s are only available through a completely luck-based system is absurd. People can open tons of legendary tokens and be left with none, or very few 5s to show for it. They have no way to assure their progress in this end game arena.

5*s really should have been implemented through some kind of progression bar, quest, or objective. This is the type of thing where you want to make sure that your long, arduous efforts are actually going to be rewarded.

Let’s look at the potential outcomes that are added when we add luck to the acquisition of 5*s rather than making them a steady progress based reward:
-Some people will get the average amount of tokens. This outcome is no different for them.
-Some people will get very few tokens. This outcome is terrible for these people.
-Some people will get more tokens than average. This outcome is better for these lucky few, but the problem is that it doesn’t actually feel better. Why doesn’t it feel better? Because they get to compare their progress to a whole new class of super-whales that has now been introduced.

This leads us to monetization. Originally, 5*s were said to only be available through game play. This was a great idea. But then, slowly, avenues for monetization crept in. Tokens were available through token pack purchases and now through CP, which can be purchased.

To put it simply, monetization completely ruined the system. Now, a select few get to run around with untouchable characters. What are your options to compete? Spend thousands of dollars, if you can find 19 others to spend with you, or spend tens of thousands of dollars if you want to go it alone.

The ironic thing is that if 5s were only available through playing the game, like it had originally been stated, this still would have driven sales of HP. 5s would obviously only be available at the top levels of play, and to compete at those levels you need to buy covers, boosts, shields, and roster slots.

At this point, I really don’t know what they can do. It’s just so sad to see what should have been a wonderful idea turn into a source of strife because the implementation is lacking. It’s something that happens far too often in this game.

2

If you don’t like your free stuff you pull, sell it.. you can earn legendary tokens without spending a penny.. and i have earned my last 30+ without spending a dime.. so monetization is off the table… i do have 4 5* covers though thankfully.

There is no conundrum here.. make them too easy to get, everyone will complain about it, make it too hard, and everyone will complain about it, make it just right.. like i feel it is.. and everyone complains about it.

Did you pull one before your roster was ready? There is no-one forcing you to keep it.. you obviously earned a legendary token, so you can do it again, and don’t have a high 4* roster, so the 2k iso will most likely help you more than the 5*… and give you levels, which in turn will help you earn more tokens to get what you actually need.. and as time goes by, when you are ready , you will get another to keep.

The process is fine..

Whales will be Whales, in any game, no matter what, and should not be considered into any equations.. If that is how you want to play, then more power to ya.

The amount of people who whaled 5*s is probably close to 1/500th of a percent of players.. so including the is just digging hard to justify something..

Most of these posts i read, honestly come off as sheer jealousy… i want what they have, why can’t i have it now!

Bigger, better, faster, more…right now.. or i’ll sue! that is the way of the world these days.

3

That’s great for you, I’ve earned about the same amount of Legendary tokens and I’ve pulled ONE SS, from my third token, 6 unusable Elektra covers, 4 unuseable HB covers., 3 unusable IW covers, 2 unusable XFW. I’ve had to sell as many, if not more legendary covers as I’ve been able to train

The process seems fine because you are ahead of the curve

4

I think you’re reading this post as much more negative than it actually is, Malcrof. I think it’s a fair point of criticism that the only way to currently obtain the highest tiers of characters in the game, and I’m actually including 4*'s in this, because Legendary Tokens have become the main way of obtaining those as well, is completely random (because let’s be honest here, at 720 CP a pop, direct purchasing of 5* covers is a non-factor except for alliances full of big whales, and as you say, those are pretty rare).

For example, player A could earn, say, 20 Legendary Tokens in a month, and end up with no 5* characters and only 5 covers that aren’t duplicates. At the same time, player B gets 10 Legendary Tokens, and pulls 10 useful covers, including one or more 5* characters. I think everyone would say that player A is the better player of the two, yet his roster is advancing slower than ‘lesser’ player B. In that case, I think it’s more than fair that player A would be getting frustrated. I’ve heard of top-end players quitting the game after pulling 0 5*'s from 40 LT’s, and I really can’t blame them.

I get that games like these are based around the ‘slot machine’ mechanic, everyone is jonesing for that one lucky pull. And some players will choose to improve their odds by buying more pulls on the slot machine, and that’s fine as well, even if that is no guarantee at all.

The nice thing about MPQ in the 3* days is that it offered enough non-random chances to collect and build up characters: through pvp and pve placement, and progresssion rewards and later DDQ. And I think that for that tier, despite the sizeable character pool, they’ve indeed hit the sweet spot for how easy/difficult specific covers are to obtain, although with the advent of 4* players, the devs might want to re-think how far down placement rewards should go, because I think placement has become too difficult for those that most need the 3* covers because 4*+ players take up too much of the top 100 with the inflated scores needed for the 1300 prog reward and first place placement/season score.

I think that right after the introduction of the 1300 cover prog reward (back when you still got a specific cover), that sweet spot was attained for a brief while for 4*'s as well. But right now, we have a 4* character pool that is about as big as the 3* pool was at the start of the game, and it keeps expanding… but the rate at which you can attain specific covers has gone back to before the introduction of the 1300 prog reward. I don’t think that’s a sweet spot at all if you want to have a meaningful sense of progression, and for the average 3/4* - 4/5* transitioner, adding random tokens will not significantly speed up that process.

In a way, I’m in two minds about the quickly expanding 4* pool. On one hand, each addition makes it harder to complete specific characters. On the other, if it stopped expanding, it would mean that at some point even Legendary Tokens would only offer me a 10% chance of being able to add something to my roster… and progression would slow down even further up to a point where, as someone who is primarily a collector and not a high score chaser, I don’t know if the game would still be worth playing. Player/roster strength at the top end of the game will not be based on skill, or time devoted to the game, or even money spent if we’re looking at average high end players and not the superwhales, but purely on dumb, blind luck.

I don’t think that’s a particularly healthy state for the ‘elder game’ to be in, and I get the sense that that’s the point raffoon is trying to make as well. Now I’m remaining carefully optimistic that the new feature planned for the end of the year is something that will address this, but I do feel it’s something that definitely needs to be addressed.

5

You seem to have completely and utterly missed his point. Kudos.

6

Just saying.. If it was supposed to be a reward for veteran players, why are there so many people with tinykitty rosters with 5* toons and I’m at day 529 and still haven’t had a sniff at a 5*. OP has a point. Though my complaints with this game aren’t around the 5*s, it’s lots of other things that encourage me to not spend anymore money on HP because d3/demiurge don’t want me to be a paying customer through their tinykitty customer service.

7

I was on board, until I got to here. When I compare myself to certain players who shall not be named, I don’t feel worse at all. I actually feel pretty good about myself that I’m not addicted enough to want to spend $20k on a f’ing phone game. If you going to pay an insane amount of money for a win button, you deserve a win button.

What DOES make me feel worse is when I see players running around with more 5s than I have, even though I’ve earned twice as many tokens as they have. As I pointed out in another thread, there is no “long run” when it comes to legendary tokens. Given the hit rate and the number of tokens we can expect to open in the future, the distribution of 5s is way too spread out to be acceptable. Progression to the ultimate level should never have been designed to be so completely dependent on luck. As you stated in your post, 5*s should’ve been tied to something like a progress bar (like how one’s cp accumulates), or via a no-reset vault. “The more you play, the farther you progress” isn’t a concept that should’ve been shelved at the end game.

8

I am only addressing the 5* issue.. i have the same crap luck on 4* pulls as everyone else… sold 5 or 6 JG covers, countless PX, and 2 IMHB… the ones i don’t need… and have not pulled the ones i wanted.. red hulks , etc… Tokens are tokens.. i have no misconceptions about them.. which is why, if i see a 4* cover i need as the 1k reward in pvp, i get it.. period.. thats my guarantee.. tokens are a crap shoot, the gambler in me loves them, the completionist in me wants only covers i need.. can’t get both…so, skipping the 4* argument, the covers will come eventually(see below for that).

As for 5s, each single token is a 10% chance. It is not cumulative, each individual token has a 10% chance. That means there is a 90% chance you won’t get one.. Yes, i have been lucky on 5, some have been much luckier… if i count all my legendary tokens, i am still behind the 10% even with my 5 total covers.. but when i go to the casino, i only bring what i am willing to lose, because i live in reality, and know the house usually wins.. sometimes i win, but usually the house.. Does that mean i hate the person who sits down at the slot machine i just left . and hits the big win.. yes, internally i want him dead, but making a public display of it, lands me in jail, and i am an adult and know better.. but that is the way of tokens.. expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

Free to play means your getting all sorts of free stuff if you play, and it doesn’t cost you anything but time.. this is not a job, so your time is not worth actual money, you chose to play this in your leisure.. and people seem to really get angry with the free stuff lately for some reason.. this just boggles me to no end.. i doubt anything anyone says will ever make me understand that. Worst case, i get a piece of the millions of iso i need to level the covers i already have.

-----------------------------------------------------------end part 1.

Now about 4*s

Not counting new char releases, you are guaranteed 11 4* covers a season if you hit 1k each event and 2k in the shield sim.. More if there is a new release.. up to 5 from the release event, and the 1k in the new char pvp, 2 new chars in a season means a potential of 21 covers… potential.. realistically, it will be more like 15-18. If you get your leg tokens from pve and pvp, even out of those 10 pvp and 4-6 from PVE, odds are you will get at least 1-2 usable. Add in the off-season event ones, and the 4* transition is happening at a good clip.

In closing…

5*s are a bonus.. nothing more. They gave no expectations of them being easy to get, we were never led to believe we would all have 1 or 2 completed by next anniversary.. and if somehow that was gleened from their posts.. i would love to see how…because that is slightly delusional.

9

The OP raises a bunch of really good points. It would have been interesting to see 5* covers associated with long-term progression and in-game “achievements” - and there’s a whole bunch of ways these could have still encouraged spending/persistence. For example:

  • Complete 4/4 rewards for all mission pins in “Dark Reign: Prologue”. Reward: Norman Osborne (Iron Patriot) redflag.png

(Since the Prologue chapters are constant, you’d need to complete all of them for this reward)

  • Complete 4/4 rewards for all mission pins in “Dark Reign: Unstable ISO” in a single event. Reward: Norman Osborne (Iron Patriot) blueflag.png

  • Complete 4/4 rewards for all mission pins in “Dark Reign: The Hunt” in a single event. Reward: Norman Osborne (Iron Patriot) blackflag.png

  • I’m using a fictional Iron Patriot 5* as rewards for completely clearing Dark Reign events, but we could sub in other characters instead, to try and be slightly more thematically accurate (eg. Old Man Logan from Enemy of the State)

  • “Original Crew”; Level Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Angel, and Professor X to max. Reward: Jean Grey (Phoenix) greenflag.png

  • “Heraldry”; Level Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, The Thing, and Doctor Doom to max. Reward: Silver Surfer (Skyrider) blueflag.png

  • “Family Matters”; Level Patch, Daken, X-23, and Wolverine (X Force) to max. Reward: Wolverine (Old Man Logan) blackflag.png

  • Level all 1* characters to max. Reward: The Shocker (Legit) redflag.png

  • unlock achievements by maxing certain teams or sets of characters.

I think I’ve made the idea pretty clear. It certainly couldn’t be implemented into the current version of MPQ, but I think the groundwork is there.

10

Well OP, I think you may have missed the point of 5*'s. You’re not supposed to get them. That’s what “long term” means. Its the hook to keep you playing, the carrot to keep you chasing. To think that 100 dollars earning you 7cp is monetization…nah. You or the people in your guild have to spend 400 dollars to get one legendary token for everybody. Let that sink in a minute. That’s more expensive than a ps4. If people want to spend that kind of money, let em.

11

If that’s not monetization, then what is?

12

I agree with both points. 5s should be a long term goal not dependant on luck, just on play time (CPs was a nice concept but also not very well implemented) and having some guys that are able to spend 20k $ and have 2 maxed SS, maxing the third, 2 maxed OML and a Phoenix in progress just after 3 months of being released completely defeats the purpose (this guy exists and I guess some of you know him). This is a paying GOD Mode button.

And now a First World problem:

And it is not just getting the 5s, I have been lucky pulling 5s, I have pulled 8 with 50 LTs, so I am in the lucky bunch (15+% pulling ratio). But then even being lucky I have the problem of getting more covers from one type than from the other, so my SS is 1/1/3 so he is unusable, and my OML is 1/0/3 also unusable. So yeah I am lucky, but then I am also unlucky (???) If you know what I mean. And this is because all 5 covers depend on luck, it would be really nice If you could get one from each color in succession…

13

No, it doesn’t.

The purpose is to get people to spend money on this game, so that it turns a profit.

If someone spends upwards of 20K USD on the game, I’d say the purpose is very much fulfilled.

Again, if someone spends so much on a game they completely deserve to dominate whatever game mode they play.

14

People who spend boatloads of money having a big advantage in the game (which I agree is a good thing, they deserve to get what they pay for) and top-end progression becoming a bit less luck-based for more ‘average’ players are two things that don’t need to be mutually exclusive.

15

Yes and No. Of course someone that spends 20k $ in a game should get something good, and Devs want us to spend money BUT this is a competitive game, and 5 are much much better than 4s, so this is not like maxing all 4s when they come out, so they have an advantage, but fights are still fair, this is GOD Mode, and this breaks the competition. And when competition is not fair and you just pay to win the game has a problem. Thing is nobody should be allowed to spend that much money in the game!

At least you need so much money that this is not a widespread problem right now, but when big alliances will have time to spend the same amount of money between all of them in a couple of months or a little bit more, and then more people start having maxed 5s just because they spent money, we will be having a problem… OR we will abandon the game which I don’t think is good for devs.

16

After I left my merc pve alliance for the last heroic event, I did some random alliance hopping just to see if players are spending any money. And unfortunately for the game publisher, very few alliances made even a single purchase (out of 19 members).

Also, I looked at steam app to see what the player chart for mpq is like. For steam platform, the number of players is holding steady at the low 600s daily on average. This is compared to 1.2k a year and a half ago (with a peak of 3k+). Less players means less paying customers means less revenue. I don’t begrudge D3 for monetization of 5* covers indirectly via Command Points. If there was a similar drop off in players on mobile platform, D3 is hurting for $$$.

17

Great, so we can’t make any arguments about anything in the game because we can get some of it for free (ignore the time cost, of course). That makes sense.

You earned your 30+ without spending a dime? Great, good for you. I earned mine without spending too. I stoppped counting after I opened 18-20 during anniversary. I’ve hit every PVP progression since then and about half of the PVE’s so my count is probably in the 60+ range. You have more 5*s than me. Is that a fair system?

I don’t want them to be easier to get. I want them to be more consistent to get. Adding a luck based component to the acquisition of 5*s has very little upside and some very serious downsides.

Whales are still an issue as long as you have to compete with them.

Oh no, he asked for Gusto!! The sarcasm chills me to my bone! Let’s play sarcasm today!

Gee, with luck, and enough tickets you can win the lottery. Why haven’t you won the lottery yet aesthetocyst?

The issue is that you cannot control luck. People can acquire hundreds of legendary tokens and never see a single 5*. Very unlikely, of course. It’s much more likely that they won’t acquire a usable one, though.

So if your luck fails you, what means do you have to compete in the game? Thousands of dollars. To buy more chances at luck.

Are you seriously arguing that a system where in order to compete you either get very lucky or spend thousands of dollars on a mobile game is a good system?

A guaranteed chance. Not guaranteed progress. Talk about failed theses…

Oh my. We couldn’t have two different factors that both affect the game in a negative way and are related to each other. Such an interplay between systems must be too complex to exist, yes?

Right, I understand that they have to make money. That doesn’t mean that they have to monetize every aspect of the game. This is especially true when doing so comes at a high cost in terms of satisfaction for the rest of the player base.

Having a system of long-term progression that’s based on performance(which is itself based on money to a large degree anyway) instead of directly on money wouldn’t just automatically break the bank.

Good point. I still say that having a meaningful, desirable reward at the top level would further increase player engagement, and thus sales. This is of course a hypothetical argument at that point, though.

I still maintain that for a long-term progression system with massively powerful rewards, a luck based structure introduces many downsides and few upsides. Arguments such as “it’s free, don’t complain” and “you can already guarantee your progress, just buy legendaries with CP!” are really not convincing me otherwise here…

18

It’s so very weird to say whales shouldn’t be considered in the equation, when they are the reason for the entire free to play model and every single idea behind the 5 star transition, along with many others. There’s nothing wrong with this. This is a business, so no need to dance around it.

While many will get above and below the average (while still missing that the average is average because so many will be so far above and below it, not because its actually supposed to be a number many hit at all, statistics…) the primary concern and motivation is monetization. Taking that out of the equation in any way , whether a ‘super whale’ or ‘normal purchaser’ would be dishonest.

It’s there. There’s literally a system implemented to drive odds up for 5 stars (and eventually choose a 5 star cover) based on the purchases of players you ally yourself with. (more packs more chances at 5 stars, if you are misunderstanding this one)

When there are more 5 stars and they do something about the enormous power discrepancy (even if its boosting 3 and 4 stars more) I wouldn’t expect much to be done to making the 5 star transition easier. There’s literally a crowd ( and with depending on the amount of new players, quite a large one) that is harmed far more by 5 stars then benefited by them.

For now it very much looks like the 5 star transition is a great guinea pig as to how future tiers can be introduced & how the 5 stars can be monetized even down to a cover -by cover basis (even with 10 5 stars, the legendary token with an un-shifting percentage being shared will not be an even halfway decent way to get them to the players who want/need them)

The weirdest part is taking it into factor, there’s no decent end for this situation. Even when we get further and 5 becomes even semi-normal, theres an enormous amount of characters being made irrelevant in the half the game. And would it even be reasonable to nerf characters people may be spending enormous amounts to get this early?

19

When you put your game on steam in any way, you always have to better regulate your value proposition.

100 bucks for most of a 4 star character is what this game offers.

Steam for the same 100 bucks during the right times of year can offer literally 1000’s of hours of experiences depending on what you purchase with some cash left over from the same 100.

20

You want to know the funny part? In the last year I’ve probably spend 10x (conservatively, likely 100x or more) as much money on Steam on other games than I have on this game. And I keep putting those games [which I expect to have more fun on, overall] on the back-burner…I’ve probably played this game 10x as much as all the other games on Steam I have over the last year.

So…value high? Cost low for sure, not what the devs want.

To OP…I do think 5*'s have monetized things, but not “spend thousands, get 5*'s”. I think it’s in the HP…those that are willing to spend to get to 1300 every time will get many more LT’s than I do, and will eventually pull more 5*'s than I do, and get ahead first. Every time I make this point someone pops up and says “But I buy -every- roster spot and hit 1300 -every- time and I never buy HP”…I honestly don’t know how that’s possible. I really do think you have to spend to both hit 1300 and have the new roster spots, and this is how the 5*'s are going much faster to those who spend.

Want to know why I don’t spend for 1300 every time D3? Three little letters…R…N…G. I’ve earned my fair share of LT’s for sure, and have gotten hosed in the 5* department.