That seems to be the plan this time around. The ridiculous level boost for new characters made sure Gambit and Thor got played anyway (not that Gambit needed the help…), but maybe people aren’t chasing Archangel hard enough yet?
They should not design lackluster characters, which would be easy if they solicited feedback from a handful of vets during the development process instead of using them as beta-testers.
You know they don’t care about our feeback as long as it isn’t “Take all my money!”
I agree that’s their motivation for doing it this way, but in reality it’s doing the exact opposite. I don’t hoard and spend all my cp on latest. I’ve yet to get an archangel, so the good doggy gets no treat. Because of the rapidity of the essential, I’m incentivized to hoard so it doesn’t happen with the next 5* release.
Oh, sure…
Now tell me how is it possible that i have 0 covers of Archangel despite of being something you call “a veteran player (i am selling the first few maxed 3s, have over 20 promoted 4s)”
Do you want to say that average newcomer has Archangel and i dont?
No, giving players enough time (approx. 3 months) to get Archangel from latest is much better for EVERYONE, than requiring Archangel few weeks after his release.
Sure, maybe there are some players who came after most of 5*s reached Classic, but tell me, what is their average CP/LT gain - you came with the statement that “they manage to get Archangel from Latest before it is moved in Classic” so they must be pretty rich 
Damn, these players maybe dont even have level high enough to play SCL7 PvE.
It’s pretty clear what he means…
You’re focusing on you vs focusing on everyone else.
His point is that if they only did essentials from classics it would be much harder for any newer player to have the 5* (and it would get worse with each new release). Classics would be better for vets because they either grabbed them while they were latest and easier to get or had a wider breadth of time to pull them from classics.
Focusing on latest makes the playing field somewhat more even because (outside of variances in CP/LT income) a new player and a veteran player both pulling from latest have the same probability to have the essential.
This isn’t to say that I agree with the LLLCC but I see his (and likely the devs) point. I would much rather it be either 50/50 (LCLCLC) or 33/66 (LCCLCCLCC).
Edit you say that “No, giving players enough time (approx. 3 months) to get Archangel from latest is much better for EVERYONE, than requiring Archangel few weeks after his release.”: sure, but what about the other 17 classics? You know, the ones new players didn’t get while they were in latest because they weren’t playing then. It’s not like they’d just repeatedly feature archangel till the next 5* came in. If they only did classics the only reasonable way to do it would be to rotate through them all and Silver Surfer is a lot harder to get today than Archangel is.
They already have pretty open communication with some vets in the Discord channel, just an informal “hey, what do you guys think about [mechanic 1] paired with [mechanic 2] for a new 5*”? I mean, look at the Gambit thread - it was super obvious to vets how insanely OP he was going to be, yet the devs had no clue. When they immediately followed with the “nerf” it was again pointed out that it was actually a defensive buff before anyone had a chance to play with or against the updated character in game. So the amount of effort they would need to extend to catch a major flaw would be minimal anyway. You could use more formal NDAs or whatever, but really not necessary. A beta sandbox arena or test server could be used as well for test purposes, but for new characters, just reaching out to a handful of vets is really all they would need to do.
I’m guessing that their development process isn’t set up to handle feedback. They just move forward; after all, they push out a new character every two weeks and even just floating ideas would add at least a few days to the process. Imagine if even early in the process they said “What about X and Y”, allowed comment for a day or two. Then they had to take that feedback and potentially go back to the process and start again. Their process would have to be longer, which would require at minimum pushing off a new release as that process began with little upside.
Previewing characters is probably bad because: Imagine an early build of someone. They allow beta testing, try out something, and it comes off bad. They rework but the early reputation is set, so they launch the character a month later, but already the community has an opinion and if it’s bad, the devs lose out. The business model depends on the whales going whole hog on buying the new person to have the possible advantage that is given. If whales think there was a skippable character, bad for the devs, even if they fix it.
It should be noted that the community on Line already shares lots of data mined info and knows the next 3 characters right now, and have already started forming opinions about them. NDAs would be laughed at so there’s no real upside to them trying to include players in the development process.
New players missed old 5s in latest, i admit it. But what do you say - are they more willing to spend CPs for Latest, or for Classics?
I am something you called veteran, 20+ champed 4s, 1 champed 5*… still, i am buying ONLY classics and my main source of LTs are rewards from promoting 3s and 4s. I bet that newcomers you care so much about both prefer buying classics AND have lack of Legendary tokens (but they are getting pretty decent amount of CPs from events, promoting 2s and maybe 3s).
For newcomers who prefer Latest tokens over Classics, yes, it is possible that getting 5s from Classics may be painful. But is that worse than getting 5 from latest?
Btw. it would be cool if some newbie told us how much CPs/LTs, or 5*s in general, he got before he unlocked SCL7.
Why are we talking about newcomers? Newcomers should not be playing in clearance levels where there is a required 5* anyway.
Last event Gambit was required as 5* essential, which i didn’t have. I had a hard time getting T50 each day (which i also didn’t accomplish every day), but i managed to get T50 overall, though it took points well over max progression.
This time it’s Archangel, which i only got during first day and since he’s still relatively scarce, i think i’ll have an easier time getting T50 this event.
I’m pretty sure you can get to SCL7 within 3-6 months somewhere. With dilution of classics being up to like 17 and the low CP/LTs they get there’s no way they’d be close to having the 5* to continue moving upwards.
You could argue the SRs for the SCLs are too low (cause they are), but that’s the reality right now.
Like I said I’d rather see classics more than they are now, it should be something to reward people that do have them, but their focus for the last year as clearly been to get people to champ new characters ASAP:
- Vaulting followed by Featured/Vintage
- Shield Training events
- 5* essential order/focus
- And of course the old standard of 5* swaps for Latest
Like or not getting people to champ anything new ASAP seems to be the devs top priority and until that changes I don’t think we’ll see much a swing on the 5* essential rotation.
See my above post. I think they strongly want people to buy Latest over Classics.
IMO at 20 4* champs you really should consider moving to Latest, the pros out weigh the cons once you’re that far into 4* territory. Each 5* you let slip by is going to be dramatically harder to get later. Assuming you have at least one of each vintage 5* I’d switch if were you.
It’s gotten so bad that I was actually MAD about pulling a Gambit this morning because I needed an Archangel to compete in this PvP. Something is messed up when that’s the case.
Why are some players displeased with 5* AA being featured in the next event? Is it because D3’s schedule is not as predictable as they expected? Or because they couldn’t pull 5* AA? If other 5* instead of 5* AA are featured in the next event, would there be another group of players who would be dissatisfied because AA is not in the next event?
We’re a bit upset because he was in regular Latest tokens a mere 6 days before being featured.
That’s an awfully short time to draw a specific 5.
That, and there’s no conceivable reason to skip Thor. They set up a very solid pattern. Why did they screw with it? I mean, speaking for myself, I’m not exactly upset - I’d call it more “mildly annoyed.”
I decided to save my hoard for AA until next essential because I am iso broke and have so many fully covered 4*'s. It was actually a great decision. I decided to just try SCL9 for the subevent alliance tokens.. wow! It was worth it AND I am rank 72.. not bad considering I do not have AA.
That’s where I fall. I pulled all my LTs and a good chunk of CP (~100 pulls total) trying to get as many champ levels for my Daredevil before he went to Classics. I was expecting Thor to be the featured 5*, then two Classics and Gambit and Thor again before Archangel was featured the first time. I was hoping to have enough LTs and CP hoarded by then to have a decent chance at getting him at that point.
Not to mention many players were also waiting for America to enter tokens before making a sizable number of pulls while chasing Archangel. For the devs to feature AA rather than Thor ruined those plans as well.