The elusive 5* Carol

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I get why people assume that we are getting a 5* Carol, since her movie release date coincides with the timeline for a 5-star character to be released. Plus we don’t have a Danvers in the 5* tier.

But, why do people assume she will be the “new meta” and dethrone Thorkoye or Kitty? A hear a lot of people saying that they’re hoarding for the Carol meta or saying we won’t get a meta shakeup until Carol, and I have no idea why we should believe she’ll even be good.

She’s a key character in a major Marvel Movie!

Like Civil War Cap/Tony, IW Cap, Loki, or even recent additions Wasp and Kingpin. One can argue that MCU/movie status does nothing to increase a characters power. Sure Thorkoye are MCU, but Gambit and Kitty sure aren’t.

Her 4* version is a beast!

Yeah, so is Wasp’s. And her 5* is trash tier. Not to mention 2* and 3* Carol, while they have niche uses, are lower ranked in their respective tiers. So it’s not like all Carol’s are OMG amazing.

Larson Carol is a pretty sought after character people are excited for!

Not as much as Cable or Emma who both wound up being duds. Cable is okay. Emma is trash. Then we have people like Chavez and Okoye who I’m pretty sure no one asked for, who end up being meta shifting rock stars. So fan favorite does not equal power creep every time.

But… First MCU female lead… it’s a pretty huge deal!

So was Infinty War, 10 year anniversary of Marvel, 5 year anniversary of MPQ, and people assumed there would be a meta defining digital day character (ala Gambit last year) that didn’t come either. It being a big event does not mean the game will give us a broken character. Or even a GOOD character.

I guess my TLDR is if you are hoarding because you like Captain Marvel as a character or want to avoid Cable/Fisk, that’s completely understandable. But, if you’re hoarding in the hopes that you will be first in line for the Carol meta, I have a feeling folks may be disappointed when the power doesn’t creep. Feels like the developers learned from Gambit- which is a good thing in my opinion!

What are your thoughts? Is she going to be the next big thing?

2

You forgot the most important reason: Demiurge needs a money maker.
If they don’t bring a new meta char soon that replaces Thorkoye, who’s going to keep spending?

3

People were expecting a powerful 5* Thor when Thor Ragnarok was about to be released, and there was a lot of Disappointment when he was previewed as I recall. Doesn’t have much with the current discussion to do, but I found it an interesting parallel.

Anyway, for me it is about being prepared. As Bowgentle Points out we are probably due Another meta shifting character like Okoye and I would rather save up the Resources now to be ready when that happens. I had just started playing again when Gambit was released, but decided to hoard for him and got him champed a few months later. The time inbetween was… not fun. I was still running Panthos most of the time, but taking on Gambit teams with them was difficult and the more Gambits got champed the harder it became to progress.

Now, I doubt we will get Another Gambit, but I would still like to be prepared. Particularly if an awesome release store comes around. If the coming 5* aren’t meta shifting I can just keep hoarding and cash in when the time is right.

4

If bringin in another meta breaking and then nerfing it is the new mantra for D3, then don’t count me on this.
I won’t waste a single cent in a character knowing that it will become trash few weeks later, like OML, Gambit and all the others before them.

5

Out of curiousity: How many weeks are “a few”, roughly? Gambit had, what, nine months of glory Before he was nerfed, and reigned supreme over the fivestar game during that time. I Think OML had twice that, at least a year and a half Before he was nerfed, and he was largely irrelevant in the meta even Before the nerf.

I don’t know who “all the others Before them” are either.

6

That’s the thing about the top tier. If you release another meh character, no one cares. If you release a meta defining character, everyone should expect a nerf when the spending ends.

However, maybe that’s better than the boredom of characters that add nothing to your game or otherwise present no compelling reason to run them. It’s a bit of a catch 22.

However, however, for all the vets who have Thorkoye, there are new people looking to enter the 5 tier and want some compelling reasons to pull. So even a “good enough” character helps keep newer players interested.

The best 5* character they have presented in the past 7 months, Kitty, took the idea of improving special tiles and made it happen (conditionally) every turn (a number of other characters boost tiles) and added in the Gambit overwrite mechanic (which he largely lost, or at least had it delayed significantly). And included some special tile creation tricks. Nothing especially unique, IMO, but nice in the tier. She is good for the game in that she works well with transitioners and helps people in lower tiers, even when not fully covered. A bit like Okoye in that regard. Essentially, she is a support character and the two best 5’s (besides JJ) of 2018 were Support characters (Okoye and Kitty), which is interesting.

The last point is how much more “meta” can be expected? I have timed my PVE matches recently; most nodes take a minute or less for the actual “match tiles and win” part. What kind of speed is the next step, before it’s truly just a series of clicks and auto-wins? Thanos is already basically auto win for the players that run him. The only way to really define the meta, in the game we have, is speed, and moving that up further starts to approach making this one of those tapping games. (NOTE: This is also the compelling reason agains 6*, since barring a SCL10, there is really nothing they could bring to the table without completely trivializing the game and truly making it a tap tap tap game.)

I realize that PVE and PVP are different things, and Gambit defined the PVP meta more due to slowing down your matches and making losses relatively likely, while not really being the best option in PVE. Kitty makes sense in certain PVPs while not working as well in most of them at the moment.

RE: 5Marvel, my confidence is about 20% that she will be meta-defining, but if she makes strike/attack tiles passively, we can predict a new meta or at least another option to fully arrive.

7

I’m not convinced that they know when they’re releasing characters whether they’re ‘meta-defining’, mediocre, or awful. There seems to be so little play-testing that they don’t do these things on purpose, they just happen one way or the other by virtual chance. Did they really know when they released them that the pair of choice was going to be an intentionally half-killed character and one whose primary abilities are healing and boosting teammates? I doubt it. So it’s virtually impossible to know how good a 5* Carol would be because the developers will probably barely have a clue themselves when/if they release her.

I’m with you, @Tony_Foot, on being tired of the poor 5* releases, though. Because of the continuing churning out of 4s that are largely irrelevant to 5 players, it’s a pretty decent gap between 5* releases. It’s dispiriting when one finally comes around and they’re just meh at best. Kitty’s basically been the only one worth caring about since Okoye (I think - I lose track of the order), and that’s a long stretch of time. Maybe the belief in how good 5* Carol will be comes from a desperate hope for something to shake up the top-end of the game a little. Kitty’s given it a little nudge but we could definitely use something more.

8

The only fivestars released between Okoye and Kitty were Wasp and Loki…

9

And after Kitty is Cable and Kingpin. Hence my point ( admittedly buried in text) that Kitty is the only decent release for the past 7 months. And we are probably 3 weeks from the next one.

10

@Daredevil217

I am one of those “hopeful” or maybe even counting on “usable” 5* Carol being released. I don’t see how I will ever have Thor or Okoye champed. Even some of the good/non-meta 5*. The game just doesn’t make it very easy to get 5* characters, so you got to be hopeful for the future.

For every reason you put in bold I believe Carol will be released. On top of that, if they do release her, I got to think she will be GOOD. She may not be meta breaking, but I would hope for a 5* version similar to her 4* version. Imagine just a beefed up 4* version? Gives you reason to hope/want.

THE WORST CASE scenario is the 5* released at the time isn’t Carol or isn’t that great. And if the store sucks, I just keep on hoarding.

That’s my biggest problem with this game. You have to hoard. And you have to be ready to just hold and hold and hold.

As @Richyyy said… the belief in 5* Carol being release AND being good comes from frustration over weak 5* releases and…well…what else do I got?

Hope usually isn’t a strategy, but in this game, not sure what else you have when it comes to trying to step into the 5* tier. I guess I could save 7200 CP and just buy Okoye :blush:

11

I think there is ample reason to think that D3 would want Carol to be a meta-defining character. However, I don’t believe D3 are themselves sure what characters will be meta-defining or not until the character is in the wild for some time. This isn’t a slap at them, it’s just the nature of design work… you think you know how things will play out, but, in the end, you’re really not sure until you try it. D3 has publicly stated they thought Archangel would be a pre-nerf Gambit counter… not even close.

You’re trying to make a powerful character, but, you don’t want to break the game by going too far (Gambit). You also don’t want to make a character that’s too weak - if you’re even just 1% worse than the current meta options, the new character has no place in the meta.

Hitting that perfect balance is rare and it’s the reason that game metas often shift more slowly than players and even developers would like.

Carol could hit the mark, or it could be whatever 5* is released for End Game that hits the mark. Or, maybe even the very next release. Only time will tell. I think many hope Carol will be good, but, the real reason that hoarding is so popular right now is that recent 5* releases - with the exception of Kitty - just haven’t been compelling, “must-have” characters.

12

In general I think the 5* tends to resemble its lower tier variants. Thor-self feeding, same colors, strong AOE. 2-3* is good, the 5* just takes it a step further. Daredevil, stun, possible perpetual motion cd tile, good with enemy specials. As for Wasp, her original release was trash tier, so in that respect her 5* is in line.

All that said I have no expectations for 5* Carol, and I think the talk of her being meta is a little overblown. Like that “rumor” that Jubilee was going to be a 2*. Just someone’s wishful thinking

13

I try to not count chickens before their hatched, especially when dealing with this game where when they tend to crack or hard boil the eggs before they have time to hatch.

14

Thoress…Xforce Wolverine…Ragnarok…
and before them Magneto… It’s an usual path for D3 :
First create a new shiny toy everyone would want to pay for …then when they have reached the goal, broke the toy and create a new one…If other players are ok with this, good for them.
I call me out

15

Ah, you didn’t mean just in the fivestar tier. Gotcha.

16

We can also add Sentry and the original iteration of Spider-Man, I suppose. But honestly all this proves is that they occasionally screw up in character design and need to correct. All of these examples were characters who were just plain broken, and in some cases were being used in ways that the devs clearly didn’t think about (like the original Magneto.) Yes, in all these cases they nerfed the characters too hard (except maybe Magneto, I think that change was pretty good.) That’s very normal for MMORPGS, I’m afraid, nerfs are almost never done by halves. That’s what made the first Gambit “nerf” so weird.

I mean, look a the time frame - Spider-Man, Magneto, and Ragnarok were in the first year of the game. Thoress and X-Force were among the first four 4s. OML was the second 5 and was literally used by every level of the game. Gambit was an outlier, a really huge outlier. The only thing strange about Gambit was how long it took for them to nerf him.

17

Honestly, I just want to remain optimistic enough that there will be a LT group where 2 out of the 3 are really good. So I’m choosing to believe it because I don’t like Cable or Kingpin, or Loki or Wasp before them. I’ve hoarded a lot of pulls to come away with only 1 character I’ll ever use. Hoping they don’t do me like that.

18

In terms of the store, 2/3 is probably the best you can ever hope for. Although we’ve had Strange, Thanos, Panther, Hawkeye - that was the best run of good characters ever. The next best was probably DD, Gambit, Thor. Otherwise it’s been 2/3 or 1/3, depending on your when your hoard reached its goal. And again, the recent track record just isn’t very good.

EDIT: I also took a fully champed, boosted Kitty through PVE today for the first time. It just cemented my opinion that barring SCL 10, 6*s are completely unnecessary at this point.

19

Good discussion! I’ll just reply to some comments in general.

  • I agree that developers don’t mean to put out broken or OP characters nor do they mean to put out trash ones. I think both happen by accident and Carol will be no exception.

  • A few people say they’d be fine with a character who is “good” even if they don’t redefine the meta. Cable, Loki, Ghost Rider, Angel, and now Ock all probably fall in this tier. So it’s not like we haven’t had “good” characters. It’s just that they’re not Thorkoye and that’s the problem with the 5* tier. You are not incentivized to play anything but the best (or your best).

  • It’s possible that those hoarding for some fantasy next big thing will regret missing the actual next big thing if they hoard through Kitty. She will be undoubtedly part of a future meta.

  • A couple times I thought about starting a thread discussing 4* that would shake up the meta if they were fives. Because when you run out of ideas, you could always make 5* versions of those 4* characters. This is essentially Kitty who is a boosted 5* Nico. Number one with a bullet would be a 5* Grocket. A 5* Rogue would have a place as a defensive character. Chavez is already used with fives so is an easy inclusion. A 5* Mockingbird could make you think twice about running Thor. There are definitely more than a few that would have a place without breaking the game.

  • Finally, I get the fear of nerfing. I feel for those who scraped to get Gambit and when they finally joined the meta it got pulled from underneath them. This is why it’s important to have a diverse roster and not rely on any one character. Obviously this is harder to do in the end game tier and a reason many choose not to transition. When I amass the iso needed to transition I’ll be doing so hopefully with so many characters that it shouldn’t matter if one gets chopped down. But I recognize this is not an option for 90% of the player base.

20

How would YOU know if they’re good?
You’ve avoided the 5* tier like the plague for over a year.

Daredevil is “good”. Spidey is “good”. Jessica is “good”.

Cable is OK, Loki is OK, Ghost Rider is meh, Angel is meh, Ock went from absolute trash tier to passable.
None of these are “good”.
They’re ok with the god boost in PVE but see no use otherwise.