Thoughts after Restarting: Day 120

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

So I wanted to disprove 2 MPQ myths with this post:
#1 It’s best to hoard to champ 5s
#2 It’s best to champ the tiers in order
I also wanted to expound on the teams I’m playing with and against. I know some people like to soft-cap their 5s because they don’t want to face 5* champ teams in PVP. But before I get into that, I wanted to show the progress that can be made by day 120.

Current Stats
Rank 95, Slots 187
2* Tier: 3rd generation is maxing out now
3* Tier: All Champed, between levels 176 - 211
4* Tier: 4 Champs (Polaris, Morbius, Mantis, Blob)
4 Ready to Champ (Ikaris, Doc Ock, Echo, War Machine)
Valkyrie 1/5/5 lvl 233
5* Tier: 1 Champ - Shang! (On day 96)
Sersi 4/2/3 - lvl 360
Ultron 4/4/2 - lvl 360
Gamora 3/5/4 - lvl 255
Supports: Chewie 250, Task’s Sword 150, Quantum Realm 150

Myth #1: It’s best to hoard to champ 5s. This all depends on your production rates. I’ve averaged 16.6 pulls per week for the past 13 weeks. With that rate, I’ve champed Shang, could have champed Gamora, and I’m now building up Sersi. So, it can be done without hoarding, especially with the help of shards & milestones. Buying certain daily 5 shards can also help. 4* feeders are typically for the older 5s though. In SCL 10 (along with champ farms) you can earn 20 - 25 pulls per week, which is enough to cover latest AND hoard some CP for special stores. If you’re a more casual player, then you’ll probably need to hoard to champ 5s though.

Myth #2: It’s best to champ the tiers in order. I’ve tried this before, it’s slower. For example, if you have a 4* that’s ready to champ but you still have 3s that need champing, where should you spend your ISO? Well, if that new 4 will be on one of your main teams, then champ the 4* first. Otherwise, finish the 3* farm before building the 4* farm. In other words, spend your ISO first on your main teams, then on your farms second. This also applies to champing 5s before your 4s are done. And I wouldn’t soft cap my 5*s, which brings me to the next point.

Softcapping? This means to not level up your characters to their max level, on purpose. Players started doing this years ago to avoid being matched up against tougher teams in PVP. Some players that had champed average 5s were having trouble fighting teams with top tier 5s. But things have changed since then. There are a lot more players in that MMR now. I currently have 1 x 5* champ and I see a great variety of opponents in PVP. I don’t have trouble winning battles and always seek out the highest point targets, but if I had an average 5* champ instead of Shang, I could still win battles with the right 4* partner. There’s no need to fear this MMR level. The best benefit to champing 5*s is being able to play PVE SCL 10, which has the best rewards of all events.

PVE Teams & Placement: Starting on week 3, I’ve been playing Shang for everything. At first, he was paired with 3Switch but was quickly replaced by Polaris with Taskmaster’s Sword (which is awesome). 3Thanos handled the easy nodes and Ultron joined the Shang-Polaris duo for hard nodes. I’ll play Shang-Polaris-Thanos when enemies are at level 350 or less. For the past 3 weeks, I’ve been playing Shang & Valkyrie for enemies above 350. Those 2 are magnificent together! My starting or ending clearing times are between 30 - 45 minutes. This effort resulted in some good PVE placement in SCL 9. If I have the required 5*, then I can rank top 10, otherwise I rank top 100. But I’m going to play more casually if I don’t have the required 5*.

PVP Teams & Placement: My standard team used to be Shang & Polaris, but now it’s Shang & Valkyrie. I used to sub in Mantis to counter Polaris teams, but now I use Morbius. 4Grocket teams don’t stand a chance against Morbius. I see a lot of BRB-Polaris teams, but they don’t scare me. Shang & Valkyrie can take them down in 5 turns or less, while constantly draining their Green AP. I also see teams with boosted 4s and 5s (which change every week), but they’re typically not a problem. Even a 212K Health Apocalypse was easy.
My real nemesis is Killmonger. Scarlet Witch and/or Colossus slow me down, but they can be beaten. Ronan can be a problem, but every other 5 is not a problem except for IHulk. I don’t have a counter to him just yet. At first, I was thinking Quake; she won’t reduce all of his AOE but she can destroy 8 green tiles for 7 Blue AP. I don’t have Electro, but Sersi could certainly help. She could reduce green drops or produce 1700+ protects each turn. Is there someone that can simply fill up green tiles with specials instead?
As for placement, lately I’m getting between 900 - 1000 points, ranking top 25. I can easily win battles with Shang (so I hit 75 wins), but my float point is low because Shang is easy to beat too. I’m hoping that some new 5* champs will allow me to float higher and climb higher.

2

Love the write up. Love the advice, as always.

I disagree on the argument against soft-capping though.
I have been playing PVE CL10 for 11+ months now and have exactly zero 5* champs. I have never missed full progression and usually end getting up about 1.4x-1.7x FP.
I haven’t found a node yet that I cannot somehow beat (even pre-Shang, and I’m not resorting to DP Whales, either). Clears 4&5 in the 5E and CN nodes can be challenging, and I skip Clear #5 a lot, but Clears 1-3 are almost all reasonably beatable.

When I try hard I place T20 (full disclosure: that is with a flip, but a very competitive flip), and have even been T10 twice; when I play lazy (which is far more often than not) I get T100. Can I do my clears in 18 minutes like those with 550s? Of course not, but that is not necessary to succeed in CL10. T200 and full progression is still extremely successful and reward-generating. That is the blessing of CL10, the rewards are SO good that you don’t have to play uber-optimal and get T10 to feel like it was worth it.

If CL10 PVE rewards are the peak of the mountain (a point with which I very much agree) and CAN be all achieved without champing my 5s, why would I make PVP harder by champing them?
Yes, I honestly believe you can reliably beat your opponents in single 5* champ MMR (especially with your skill and a char like Shang at your disposal), but it’s even easier to beat 4* teams with an occasional under-covered soft-capped 5* (sometimes boosted, sometimes not) scattered in.
My typical PVP scores are 1300-1600, and I shield-hop almost exclusively with Polaris/Grocket.

3

I know there are many avid critics to soft-capping (and to me personally for having my strong conviction towards it), and they are always entitled to their own opinions.
I just wanted to highlight the FACT that CL10 PVE is NOT gated behind having 5* champs, should anyone reading this be on the fence about making the “leap”.

4

Thank you for the insight. Since SCL 10 was implemented while I was away from the game, I’ve never played it before. So I was going off of the advice of my alliance and the fact that there are level 650 enemies. I intend to clear each node for max points and reasonably fast as well, so perhaps we can agree that 5* champs are needed for that? But I see your point that 5* champs are not needed to hit full progression or get top 20 (because you’ve proven that).

I can’t say that I have a well founded opinion on soft-capping (because I’ve never tried it). Nevertheless, it goes against my core desire to progress in the game. I would also think the daily gameplay would get boring as the top 4* teams are well established and unchanging (I could be wrong about that since I sped past the 4* MMR with Shang).
I’m also thinking that because of weekly boosts, your max champed 4s will be at the same level as baby champ 5s, so wouldn’t you face 5* champs anyway? Shouldn’t your 5s be soft-capped at the level of a boosted 4?

5

MMR is based on unboosted character levels.

KGB

6

While I don’t pretend to fully understand MMR rules, I’ve been told [Edit: it looks like KGB (a fellow soft-capper) sniped me, to confirm :stuck_out_tongue: ] that boosts do not factor in to MMR. Whether that is right or wrong, I can personally attest that no, I do not see 5* champs much at all. And when I do, They are always baby-champ 450+s paired with a 4*.

Regarding variety, there is no tier more diverse than the 4* tier. Sure they aren’t all meta (or even close), but the additions that have been made in the last 18 months have allowed PVE and PVP to be more diverse. Yes, when push-comes to shove (like on a PVP shield hop where speed matters) it’s all about Polaris/Grocket/(Juggs when a 3rd). But all of the nodes in between can be anything we want it to be. The 4* tier has a counter for virtually everything, you just have to figure it out . Additionally, just because my 5s are soft-capped, it doesn’t mean I can’t use them. There is plenty of fun to be had in a diverse 5* roster, and they don’t have to be champed to be effective. Also, while most ignore this fact, 4*s get weekly boosts, too.
As a very recent testimonial: As a chance of pace, I just completed my entire end-grind of Cosmic Chaos Sub3 without using Polaris, Grocket, or Juggs even once; my final event placement - 22nd place.

FYI - I soft-cap my fully-covered 5s at level 360.
20 are currently fully-covered (all of the metas, plus more), with 5-6 more on track to finish by the end of March. My highest 4* is a level 343 Polaris, the next highest are in the 330s.

7

@skittledaddy Well….then I can’t fault you for playing the game that way. From what you’ve said, it makes sense. You use all characters, have variety and earn good rewards.

But what are you going to do when your 4*s reach 370? Is that your end game? The summit to achieve and then quit? Or will it never end because they keep releasing new characters? I guess what I’m asking is: What motivates you to play? And do you have plans to ever quit?
EDIT: Part of what motivates me to play is the challenge to beat teams far stronger than my own. That’s satisfying. It’s not fun for me to beat easy teams. Achieving something that is difficult brings satisfaction though…..such as achieving a high rank in an event.

8

Once my 4s hit 370, I’ll just start making dupes. I don’t see it affecting my gameplay at all. There is always another new-shiny 4* to chase.
What motivates me? I want to be that annoying guy who has every 5* char fully-covered but won’t champ a single one of them. Like they say in Pokemon, "Gotta fully-cover-and-soft-cap 'Em All!!
My end-game? Unless there is a major shake-up in the game mechanics, the day I champ my 5s is the day I quit. That or the day the devs announce 6*s are coming.

9

Trust me, it get this satisfaction every day when I play PVE. Like you said, “Thar be 650s in there…!”
Especially on a 5E node when I’m forced to bring a dead-weight lvl 255 under-covered 5*.

10

I imagine if I had a roster of 550’s and every battle was easy to win and my game progression had topped out, I would get bored within a month or so and quit. In that scenario, I would welcome 6* or SCL 11. But I’m going to quit long before that. I’m having fun progressing through the game (again) but I know that that progression will eventually come to a crawl and I’ll question why I’m doing it.

11

Great to see that you’ve made so much progress so quickly!

I largely agree with @skittledaddy on the softcapping though. I’m keeping my 5s at 330 whilst I champ more of my 4s. I don’t have much problem with PVE, although I generally don’t put much effort in due to finding it boring continually repeating the same nodes. Sometimes I may go as far as full progression but often I just go as far as the 50 or 75 5* shards rewards.

I have Apoc at full covers so could champ him and find out what single champ 5* MMR is like. Choosing not to do so is not for fear of not being able to win, but for fear of a lack of diversity. I don’t wish to become the kind of player that has a “standard PVP team”. Softcapping means that I can choose from my underlevelled 5s, champed 4s and even occasionally boosted 3s and still stand a good chance of winning matches. Indeed, what I like most about the game is when I can beat meta teams with non-meta teams. There’s also quite a bit of variety in opponents at this level, particularly since they introduced 5* boosts. It doesn’t feel like it’s just Polaris any more and when it is, I have so many counters to her that those matches are usually pretty quick.

12

A champed 5* in ~3 months, and I don’t think you are whaling.

How much did you spend in total and what kind of alliance are you in?

13

Fairly certain they bought the SCL packs and a bit of HP to get the ball rolling. I remember seeing that in a previous update topic

14

The last time he mentioned spending was in Day 60 thread. Here’s the relevant part:

being in a good alliance (who also make purchases) and making many purchases myself (mostly for the HP). Of course, I was smart with my spending and did some buy clubs. At this point, I’m done with spending except for VIP.

VIP is 9.99 * 4 = $40
Some buy club = $300 to $500 or more
Many purchases = scl packs? $200?

15

This is how I got a 5* champ on Day 96:

  1. I bought the SCL starter packs, 3 Starks in a buy club and a few other offers totaling $600 as of today. The purchases were mainly to get HP for roster slots.
  2. During the first 9 weeks, I pulled 110 Latest which resulted in: Shang 3/1/3, Ultron 4/4/2, Gamora 0/2/2, Odin 1/0/0 which is a 20% rate.
  3. The week before, I used my shards to add another cover to Shang, so he left Latest as 4/1/3.
  4. I got “lucky” with Classics and pulled another Shang cover!….making him 4/1/4.
  5. For the next 5 weeks, I added 3 more covers by shards alone (with the help of milestones)……making him 4/4/4
  6. I bought the $30 HFH deal which gave out 525 Shang shards, which completed him.
  7. From week 3 to 14 I steadily spent ISO adding levels to Shang. So when I got his 13th cover, he was champed soon after on Day 96.

Please Note: This feat can be repeated by other new players. The beginning milestones that reward 5* shards are easy and generous. So with 110 Latest pulls, plus uneven distribution, 1 of those 5s should be covered enough to be finished with shards. In my example, I got a lucky pull rate of 20%, but most of the covers went to Ultron, Shang got his expected 7 covers out of the 110 pulls.
As I continued to pull, Gamora got her covers and she left Latest as 3/5/4 with no help from shards. I could have made her my 2nd 5 champ by now if I wanted to. Instead, I’m focusing on Sersi.

16

600 dollars is more than I’ve likely spent in over 7 years of playing and I’m guessing more than most would want to dedicate to a mobile game they’ve been playing three months (though maybe I’m wrong on that).

As for the softcapping debate. I’m pro capping. I did it for a while but eventually champed them all when I realized I was almost exclusively using my sub-leveled 5s anyway. I love baby champ MMR right now because boosts make the meta shift significantly each week. It’s pretty awesome because I actually get to use a lot more of the characters that I grind my way to completing and can be competitive with them (my definition being 1200 and out). But I’m in a very privileged position having the backlog champed and keeping up with new releases. If my choices were to champ JUST Shang or JUST Apoc, I think I’d rather softcap and enjoy the variety even if it meant nabbing less rewards.

17

I have a great variety of opponents in PVP and Shang is just a fun and “puzzley” character to play. So, no regrets there.

As for spending, my time is more valuable than my money. So, I would rather spend $1000 and play the game for 6 months than spend $100 and play the game for 6 years. That’s why I’ve quit so many times; the cost in time is way too high.
People have suggested to me before to cut back and play less, but I can’t stand doing less than my best, so casual play is not my thing. When I get into a hobby, it’s all or nothing. And this hobby is no more expensive than my others.

18

I often read that to spend x money on a mobile game is a bad decision for many people. But compared to what? To buy a super expensive PS and some expensive videogames? (and the lifetime of each one is not more than a few months) To buy a expensive PC and some video games or software? To buy the best phone recently released (and super expensive)?
The totally free game I think it’s still to be made. And buying things it’s the way in which gacha games run: let’s try to not spend anything on this game and we would see how many weeks runs before announcing shut down.
Oh, and there is another type of people: people who can’t play anymore on PS or PCs.

About soft capping, or course I don’t regret at all on champing my 5*s. But I wonder how many health packs soft capping players use on scl10 when AI makes cascades.

19

To be clear, I’m not judging how anyone chooses to spend their money. I appreciate the big spenders that keep the servers running. I’m just saying you have to put an asterisk next to “anyone can do it” (*if you’re willing to spend 200 a month). Whether someone is or isn’t willing to is on them and I won’t judge either way. I actually liked (and still like) the game for the game’s sake and didn’t feel a desire to rush to the end. I realized early 1) no matter how much you spend there will always be people ahead of you and 2) there is no end; it just goes on forever, so I’d better really enjoy the game. Which I do. I mean I wrote a character ranking guide that’s probably longer than my doctoral dissertation. So I clearly love the game.

20

Bbigler, I like your sharing so please keep it coming!
I just like to add that you were lucky in your 3rd (or 4th?) return, the 5* in latest is Shang Chi. He’s an excellent 5*, a 1-man demolition machine, so he is awesome especially in punching upwards.
if another person tries to do what you did, they need to be clear which 5* they are sinking their money and shards into.
i Remember Bad first champ 5* was Kingpin, and I suspect it must have been a difficult experience. I remember another forum player whose first champ 5* was Odin, and pvp got so difficult for him that he decided to sell Odin.
So really, YMMV. Depends on the champ 5* that the person has.