The effects of Vaulting

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
,
1

Ok, since the whole “Latest/Vintage” 4s seems to be dead, at least for now, I figured I’d show you guys what affect it had on the game. I’ll preface this with stating that I am most definitely a 5 player and I average about 3 LT pulls a day - possibly a bit higher. I track a lot of data, since early 2016 I have a log of every LT pull, some of this information is based on that data, others based on my MPQ Compendium roster.

Ok, the Limited Draw system was implemented at the same time as BH on 3/1/17. At that time, you could not draw a “Vintage” 4* from anything other than a Vault. This continued to 7/27/17, where they went with the 50/50 system - you have a 50% of drawing from the large pool of “Vintage” 4*s, and a 50% of drawing one of the 12 “Latest.”

I’ll pull three example characters who were outside of Latest when it was implemented - the data is when they were introduced, how long it took for me to cover them, and what level I have them at now. I went late to maximize the effect of dilution. I didn’t BH any of these:

Quake (Daisy Johnson) - Introduced 3/10/16 - covered 9/6/16 - currently 308

Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) - Introduced 6/5/16 - covered 3/7/17- currently 298

Moon Knight (Marc Spector) - Introduced 6/20/16 - covered 12/5/16- Currently 308

So you can see Kate was really hard to cover - over nine months. Quake and Moon Knight took around six. Ok, three who were assisted by full vaulting:

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - Introduced 8/29/16 - covered 2/13/17 - Currently 320

Venom (Agent Venom) - Introduced 11/21/16 - covered 4/6/17 - Currently 327

Iron Fist (Danny Rand) - Introduced 3/27/17 - covered 5/8/17 - Currently 329

Spider-Woman was fully covered prior to vaulting (a bit over six months to cover,) but you can see she got much higher than any of the “pre-vaulting” characters. AV and Danny were covered much more rapidly because of it - 4.5 and less than two months respectively. Danny is particularly significant as he benefited the most from Vaulting - he was introduced after it started, and was out of “Latest” prior to the shift to 50/50.

Three who were in the full “half vaulted” era, introduced after the 50/50 shift and out before it ended:

Vulture (Adrian Toomes) - Introduced 7/31/17 - covered 9/20/17 - Currently 309

Mockingbird (Bobbi Morse) - Introduced 8/7/17- covered 10/16/17- Currently 308

Yondu (AM v2) - Introduced 8/14/17- covered 9/20/17 - Currently 315

I went sequential with these since Lockjaw was still in Latest as of yesterday. :confused: As you can see, we’re still covering the characters pretty fast - around two months. However, we’re getting substantially lower before they’re out of Latest - averaging closer to 310 than over 320.

So… yeah. Take the data as you will, but I feel that the time to complete a character will be six months or more, and we’ll be seeing a more gradual leveling of the Rosters rather than getting characters to a certain point before having them slow down. Speaking for myself, I don’t like it - it will probably increase my overall rewards from Champ levels (these rewards improve substantially the higher the character gets,) but at the cost of newer 4*s being pretty much irrelevant for… well kind of indefinitely, actually - unless they’re a support character they’re never going to contribute anything as they’ll be so far behind the rest of my roster.

2

Great info, love that ppl out there are tracking this stuff so we can get some data induced perspective. So thanks and kudos for that!
I do have a question though: What about the bonus hero aspect of things, is that something you’ve tracked as well? Did that help boost some of those character levels or speed up a champing?
My speculation is that with the increase of cp and tokens we’ve seen due to higher cls and the 5nodes being introduced coupled with using BHs to target specific characters growth we should still be able to grow someone in a fairly reasonable
time frame..,maybe…

3

Back of an envelope on BHs. This is very rough and only based on the above, not on the draw percentages.

Assume you’re getting three per day or twenty each week. Let’s assume that averages one bonus hero per week.

Now let’s assume that under the pre-vaulting scenario there were half as many four stars so your odds of getting a particular one were twice as good as they are now.

If it took six six months to cover a character we could approximate that to one cover every other week (not really realistic here as i’m pretty sure @grimskald places highly enough to get some covers at release).

If we used to get an average of one cover every two weeks it would now be one very four weeks but, if they are your BH it would go to five every four weeks. Now, assuming no wastage your rate of covering those characters is going to increase significantly. In theory if you have only one BH you could cover it in around three months assuming RNGesus doesn’t treat you too badly in cover distribution.

Sadly for those that aren’t set as your bonus hero it might take you three or four times that long. On top of that, if the release rate remains the same the time taken gets longer with every new release.

Short answer, BH will accelerate cover acquisition but the rest of the story is so ugly, and the picture so diluted if you have more than one BH that it’s a drop in the ocean. :frowning:

4

@GrimSkald

Thank you for this data I do not have it in as granular a form as you do but it mirrors yours for the most part.

Seeing it laid out this way I would really be interested in the reasoning behind the decisions for each era. As in what was the intended effect on the game.

It seemed the first set of latest 12 only was to reduce dilution and to accelerate reaching higher levels.

it seemed the change to 50/50 was to create a compromise which seemingly worked.

I frankly can’t come up with a reason to return to what existed two years ago with even more dilution in the most populated tier of characters.

It is this kind of change where some communication on what the desired overall effect would be nice.

5

It depends because there are more than 1 way to get 4* covers:

  1. PvP progression
  2. PvP Placement
  3. PvE Progression
  4. PvE Placement
  5. 120CP/cover (activated)
  6. Heroes for Hire Store
  7. 3* feeders (certain characters)
  8. Story Event vaults
  9. Taco Vaults
6

I do remember a couple of surveys prior to vaulting. I remember this because my answer is always the same to the Would you Recommend MPQ to a Friend? question - no, absolutely not, dilution is too staggering to overcome for a new player. Not only can they not get anyone fully covered, they can’t afford the roster slots to even do so. There was discussion on these forums afterwards and many others said the same. Dilution was a hot-button issue, so its not like the developers were unaware.

Vaulting was the answer. In the announcement the developers specifically stated one of the reasons for the change was to allow new players to actually cover a 4-star and give them an opportunity to compete sooner at a higher level. Maybe they would never get any of the classic 4-stars, but they could have a nice stable of latest 12s.

Of course, the veterans felt completely cut-off from classic 4-stars and whined and cried for a couple-three months until the developers put in the 50/50 model around this time last year. This seemed to please everyone, or at least served as an acceptable compromise, and we all went on to complain about something else.

The reason they’re going back to the (horrible) dilution model is very simple - over the last year they’ve watched purchases in their event vaults dwindle. No one is spending in those to try and get 4-stars when they’re easy enough to cover out of the latest 12 through normal game play income. At least, that’s my best guess/assumption. No one has officially stated any reasons behind it - probably because it’s hard to spin ‘we want to make more money’.

7
  1. True, 1 every 66+ events or so, but true. (also SCL7+ only)
  2. For 2% of SCL7-9, but yeah for that small number of players
  3. True, 1-2 (occasionally 3 on boss events) every 66+ events or so, but true. (also SCL7+ only)
  4. For 5% of SCL9 & 1% of SCL7 & SCL8, but yeah for that small number of players.
  5. Sure, but it’s generally a bad deal.
  6. Probably one of the best options right now, especially the secret deal.
  7. Not holding my breath on that ever helping the new characters, which is primary what the outrage is about.
  8. Don’t know the percents off hand, but they’re not good, especially for the latest character.
    9). Sure 15/150 chance per week, even hoarding it’s so few and far between, but yeah.

TL;DR

425×225 70.8 KB

8

Alternatively, they’re close to implementing some “solution” for the dreaded x/x/5 cover distribution that will bring them profit. The suggestion of more 4* covers and the return of dilution could push more people to burning resources to save covers.

9

I deliberately chose characters that I didn’t set as Bonus Heroes to give that picture. In general, I’m fairly deliberate about setting my BH - usually it’s a character I want to get very high level. I got Carol up to 360 and stopped her, I switched it to Peggy as I kind of want to complete the older 5* Cap, and Peggy is good on her own. Yesterday I decided I want LTs, so I set it to a bunch of characters who will get an LT with one BH - I really want to cover JJ before she’s out.

I looked it up after posting, and noticed I did draw one BH Vulture, but that’s the only one out of those characters.

As far as what I earn from PVP and PVE - I pretty much always get the PVP 4* from progression, almost never from placement (I think I got that maybe 4 or 5 times total? I just don’t overshoot 1200 enough unless I find a really forgiving bracket.) For PVE I play SCL 9 and almost always get one 4* cover from placement (once or twice I earned enough for two, but that’s really rare,) and always get the progression. So yeah, there’s some there, but there could absolutely be more.

I’d also like to know their reasoning. It seems likely that they are going to implement a system to reduce cover waste, but that really won’t address the issue of covering a new character, which is going to take the Vets at least six months and newer players… I dunno, a very, very long time. Possibly never.

10

Specifically and more recently the advent of the “… and Friends” vaults are just plain garbage. If a new 4* looked decent I would often by a 40-pack during their release event and try to get them covered and sometimes champed during the event. It just made the event more fun - especially during the Panthos meta where a level 147 featured character was a huge liability. But with these new “… and Friends” vaults it’s just a complete waste of HP and my money seems to be migrating over to other less stingy mobile games.

11

I have said this many times and completely agree. The “…and Friends” vaults are a rip-off and I hope no one is buying them. The new release stores were at least palatable because you could cover a new release with a couple of packs. They were the only 4* in them. These vaults are garbage.

12

I despised full blown vaulting, because having characters become completely inaccessible is stupid no matter how you spin it. I thought the 50/50 odds was a pretty good system, though. I don’t know why they’d do away with it.

I mean, yes, I do know why. To make it harder to level new characters up and drive spending. But y’know.

13

The nice part about vaulting was it eliminated 4* farming. Once I got someone to 370 I could turn off their BH and I would only get covers for that character through feeders and event rewards - which are earned so slowly that I could sell them without regretting it (a champ reward or two once a year is probably not a great use of 1k HP for the roster slot…or even the ISO if you aren’t post-ISO). The bad part was it slowed progress to any vintage 4 not set as BH to a standstill. On day 1 of the champion system I champed Red Hulk (remember that meta?) and despite having a bunch of the newer 4*s at 370 Rulk still isn’t finished…because he all but disappeared from tokens (even under 50/50).

I think I would prefer the old school vaulting to full on dilution - it was helping me go casual. With no need for 4* placement rewards for a lot of characters I could hit my progression and quit rather than continue to play and hop for placement. Now though I’m stuck feeling like I have to continue to farm these 4*s to keep making progress. There’s a better way.

14

To the OP, Kate Bishop and Moonknight were in the first season of vaulting. They were part of the first 12, but were only in tokens for a couple weeks. It definitely helped me get covers for them, but I didn’t finish and champ them until after the 3X odds change.

Personally, my highest 4s are 308, thanks to vaulting. My bonus heroes are all over the place, usually on any that give a LT or is a 5 feeder.
I liked vaulting, it was a crazy time of constant champing. Now that I have almost all 4*s champed, this change doesn’t really mean anything to me.

15

From my perspective, veterans absolutely loved vaulting. Assuming that you mean hardcore veterans that have entered the 5* tier and earn lots of tokens and rewards, vaulting allowed for the speedier acquisition of a specific group of 4*. This is a fantastic thing for an established 5* player, because it allowed you to get 4* up to a more useable range for PvP AND you get all of the sweet high-end champ rewards.

a. 4* characters that are in-boosted are, for the most part, useless in high-end PvP. You can play around with them, but you will become a target very quickly due to their low health pool.

b. Moving up to a 4* that is boosted to 410-420 and you now have something that’s kinda viable, has high power damage abilities, and won’t be as easy a mark. Comparable to an un-champed 5*.

c. Max champed 4* are AWESOME! They provide better bang for the buck than most 5* do, even when champed. Many of them are viable in PvP including such all-stars as Mordo and Agent Venom.

I have 21 maxed 4*, with 14 of them a direct result of vaulting. These characters can be actually useful in game, whereas ones at 280-290 won’t do anything at all for me except when they’re essential. The removal of vaulting for me and other veterans means that we will likely not get the chance to really use these characters for a very long time, if ever.

16

I can count on one hand the number of vets that were initially receptive to vaulting. Most complained that all the old 4*s that were just starting to get into the good champ rewards got cut off, and would continue to do so forever. It wasn’t until several months in that they started to realize that the newer 12 were going to get much higher than originally anticipated (and in some cases actually make it to 370 before they were vaulted) that they started to come around…that was when they went to 50/50.

17

Day 1625 here. I assure you, as a veteran 4* player at the time of vaulting, i was part of a vocal minority that could see the benefit of vaulting.

On the forums, there were very few that were pro-vaulting.

You also left off a point i made at the time: helps new players. My teenage son started playing around that time. He was able to get a few good characters up to a couple covers (medusa, c4rol and bl4de), and used them with a 1 cover 5* to get to 575 every pvp, and get more of those covers, up to 4 or 5 each. Then they go to 50/50, and he has to sell cover after cover of mediocre characters, or sit with 1 cover IMHB taking up roster space and helping with pve essential twice a year. His best 3 4* have barely progressed, and he lost interest and barely plays.

The problem with vaulting (and wins based, to a degree) is that it wasn’t a benefit to us vets. We always post about the player survey, and how we wouldn’t recommend to a friend because of how difficult it would be to catch up. Well, here are a couple of things that would make it easier for new players to get established and have fun with the game, but they get bashed relentlessly on the forums by the vets and top end players, because they lose a reward or two, until they go away. And when they went away, I’ll bet a bunch of new players went with them.

18

@Spudgutter

has it correct every long term vet I spoke with felt vaulting was good for us while making the game more approachable for a new player to be competitive. That it was killed after less than six months has always felt like it was premature. I have to assume Demiurge saw something n their metrics which made them make the decision.

i worry this return to full dilution means they are more concerned with retention over recruitment.

19

I remember some mixed results. There were definitely at least a handful of vets upset that the ‘good’ rewards at the end of the champ tier were going to be lost. I do think more vets were pro it than against it though.

20

Oh, hey, that’s a good point. I had my Kate so low I had thought she was out of vaulting entirely, but looking at my log I see I pulled a few of her in that period. Let’s do the two prior, by way of a good example:

War Machine (James Rhodes) - Introduced 5/19/16 - Completed 11/27/17 - Level 299

Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) - Introduced 4/28/16 - Completed 9/6/17 - Level 304

So yeah, Kate suffered a lot because of the RNG, clearly, and was only minimally helped by vaulting.