The solution to dilution is multiple rotating stores.
Classic LT store should be removed and there should be a seasonal power gem store for 20cp which lasts from the beginning of one power gem season until the next.
It should contain a selection of 6-8 five-star characters and a selection of 30-40 4-star characters.
The contents of each season should be announced at least a week in advance so players can decide to spend in the current season or wait until the next.
This is a simple solution requiring no new programming or effort other than to make the store every month.
Could take the older LT model and apply to Heroics. Give a much higher pull rate for the latest 12x 4s. I mean, at this point, you got to pump out more 4s.
This game is clearly at the point that a large chunk of the playerbase cares about 5* feeders. So better draw rates on 4s would be nice, along with feeders for all 5s.
Just an idle thought.. maybe the problem with having so many characters and this dilution issue is to change the game a bit. A few things that would really help come to mind.. 1) up the BH chance, 2) let us mark characters as ‘retired’.. that way any character the player marks as ‘retired’ will not be able to be pulled from a vault, and 3) don’t make the battle requirements so stiff.. instead of requiring a specific character, change the requirements to things like ‘must be an avenger’, must be 3 villains, etc.. that way we can concentrate more on the roster we want and let the characters we don’t like slide a bit.
This is also me… every time the survey is put out I give it a 5 as far as recommendation. There is no way I can in good conscience tell somebody to start playing a game that they really won’t be able to start enjoying and succeeding in for at least a year (ftp not whaling). Like would it hurt to drop a 1,2, or 3 star character again..
PS I was a fan of the 5/3 star release we should bring those back so at least we can get some more feeders for our 4 star characters
A big problem with implementing a “retired” character feature is that it would need to have a limit on the number of characters that could be “retired”. If there wasn’t a limit then a player could “retire” all their characters but one and guarantee to pull covers for that character. I guess it could be set up that once retired the character cannot be brought out of retirement. That would kind of kill any hopes of ever duplicating a “retired” character later on though.
There are two basic options…keep the game as is with things continuing to get more diluted or make an adjustment somehow to make pulls/covers feel more important and valuable.
The adjustment will also result in some other loss. So going back to 50/50 would make your odds of the Vintage characters drop by a fairly significant amount. Retiring someone might make duping that 4 much less likely.
But the game is not the same game it was. Each addition to dilution changes it. Your odds of duping a 4 that you didn’t bonus are already dropping each time they add a character and your pulls get spread out more. Like, how long do you think it would take for you to be looking at a dupe Wiccan now? Mine is 295 and I have no interest in bonusing him…maybe I’ll push him to 300 at some point. Then it would probably be about 5 years before he is maxed, at minimum. Even the whaliest whales probably have one dupe Wiccan at most.
I don’t know why we just don’t have weekly featured list of characters in tokens. Just pop 10 - 15 Four stars in tokens and change those Four stars weekly. Have it a set order that is available on the forum or via an in-game lookup. If people are waiting for a specific character, pull during that window.
Of course, Bonus Heroes would be available on all characters.
I also like the concept posted by an earlier user of Unfriending a character so that you don’t pull them no matter what.
Unpopular opinion, but maybe it is actually ok? As bad as dilution is, doesn’t everyone get to a point where the champs are outpacing the releases? That might be setting the bar too low, but I manage to keep all but the latest 5 or so 4*s champed.
While it can appear daunting to see how many resources are required overall, they are never required all at once. In the slow transition you can just hoard until you can afford a roster spot, and save covers until you can champ. So they sort of did address some of the concerns of dilution while not touching dilution itself.
One change left out of the summary was the increased frequency of Boss Events. Less resource rewards but as long as your alliance finishes its 3 covers for a specific 4, plus the usual 4* cover reward. Boss events are always a key to getting new champs
Don’t get me wrong tho, I would love a return to 50/50 latest/vintage, or a rotating pool.
The idea of dividing the four-star pool into multiple tokens has been proposed since the devs vaulted all but the latest 12 back in March 2017, and players suggested having “latest 4-star” and “vintage 4-star” tokens. As I recall, the developers absolutely refused to even acknowledge that this had been suggested, though hopefully they would be more open-minded now and at least explain their reasoning if they don’t like the idea.
There are a couple potential problems with rotating sub-sets off the top of my head:
At 12 characters per rotation, we are already looking at more than six rotations to get through the existing four-star characters, and this will continue to increase if things continue as is. You can increase the number of characters in each subset pool, but then the pools themselves become increasingly dilute.
The most popular characters, typically the “meta”, would need to be spread out among the pools, or else you get several pools that few players care about and spend on, and a few that players hoard for.
You could eventually have two or more subsets available at the same time, or even have all the subsets available all the time rather than rotating. That would raise the problem of needing to use separate tokens for each, or a way to use the same token at multiple stores, essentially requiring the existing tokens to be converted to Command Points. I’d be fine with multiple simultaneous stores all using command points after converting the existing tokens, though I can see an argument that this would be too confusing for newer players - although I would argue that the real source of the confusion is the large number of characters.
I have what appears to be an unpopular opinion on these boards.
I hate vaulting. I mean loathe it. I’m talking like step on a Lego in the middle of the night barefoot kind of hate.
I like to pull resources as I go. Why? Who says this game will be here in 6 months. You could spend that time hoarding hoping something worthwhile comes along to bust the hoard on, and then get screwed by RNG and be angry you didn’t get what you wanted from your hoard. Or you could pull from the so called useless classic tokens. Yes progress will be slow, but you will earn more 4*'s and have more chances at pulling 5*'s. Covering a specific character will be slower. But as many vets on here like to say “a rising tide raises all ships” or something like that. So you slowly raise your 5’s and then the tier starts taking off and you champ one after another. The champ rewards kick in for the ones you have camped speeding you up even more. Also the entire squad of top/meta characters is in there.
Yes it may be slow but you get steady progress and you actually get to play with what you have won as rewards. Instead of looking at some pile of money that you may never have something that fits your definition of worthwhile to spend it on. The only store that has come along that was pretty much universally loved has been the one with kitty thor okoye. Every other group of 3 people say well I really don’t want “x” but I want to finish my “y” so I guess I will pull. Then they get mad and quit when to nobodies shock but their own they get the majority of the 2 5*'s that they didn’t want from the store and quit in frustration.
One interesting thing about hoarding and dilution is that the increased dilution decreases the value of your hoard beyond the 5* level. Whatever your draw rate on 5’s is, the remainder will be 4’s. So of course, the bigger that pool, the more your pulls are spread out.
Ex: Currently there are 77 4’s. 6 months ago you would have been pulling from 68 4’s, so you would have diluted your pulls about 13% in that time, and therefore your covers are on an overall basis that much less effective in raising your average roster level and champ rewards.
i keep bringing up the need for a classic legends token. it wouldn’t cure all of dilution’s ills, but it would slightly increase the amount of old 5* pulls. and increase the amount of 4* covers too.
here’s my ramble… sorry typing this while my daughter naps… my apologies ahead of time if this is kind of a mess.
i’m on day 390… spent about $45 on this game… i have all 3 star champed, 2- 4star champed and am 8 slots away from rostering all 4 stars.
i’m struggling to stay positive about 4 star land but its much harder now then when i started this game.
i pulled over 1200 heroics when i got to 4 star land (stashed them all since starting because i wanted optimal chances once i got to 4 star land) and clearly that was not enough to champ even 1 4 star.
I’ve hoarded 3000 cp and about 74 LL as of now. The reason I don’t pull is like others I think the path to just save to about 350 pulls and going to 5 star land makes more sense. You hope for kitty just so you can compete more in both PVP and PVE. .. you figure i’m basically 1/2 way there and thats with factoring the first 3 months or so I basically didn’t add anything to CP nor LL… seems like a better idea to hoard for another 7-8 months then pulling all and hoping for 4-5 fully covered 4 stars… and then still needing to save for 7-8 months from there to get close to 300 pulls again…
PVE is tough because you have to be on the clock constantly and even then you don’t have the 5 star to place in scl7, not to mention all the 5 star players that take all the top 10 spots. You play scl7 basically for progression only at my stage cause at least it guarantees you 1 4 star cover. PVP is tough because everybody basically has gritty and you really can’t do enough damage to compete, so you strive to get 575 just for the cp.
one idea maybe is 5cp for a 4 star pull… even then you need 1040 pulls or 5200 cp with perfect coverage to achieve championing all 4 stars… seems crazy still… 5200 cp give or take earning 150 cp a week = 35 weeks… and that’s with perfect pulls… oyi…
Another thought is more boss events where its not as time sensitive as PVE… you get 3 covers and a LL if you do full progression and you’re in a decent alliance. But even then… that’s just 4 covers… even if we had 1 event a week… that’s a total of 208 covers a year…
not sure what’s a good solution… but knowing they’ll probably add more an more 4 starts moving forward… something hopefully done soon because i’m getting bored of the struggle and basically sucking…
**Mod note: Post edited to remove profanity. -fight4thedream
tldr u wont beat the 5* players for t10, no matter hat you try. So you have two options. 1: learn how to use the bracket selection rooms to avoid as many 5* rosters as possible or b:
do do the math to see if t20 plus scl 7 prob is a better haul than T5 in scl6 plus progression.
My big takeaway is that 4*s are still treated like they were 2-3 years ago as if they are still this ultra rare commodity.
Having 3 fours per vault worked when we had 20 or so fours, but today with almost 80, that few offered to us is laughable.
Fact of the matter is that at this point in the game’s life, speed of progression for players (old and new) should sync with the incredible number of characters now available.
3s should be treated like 2s. 4s like 3s and 5s like 4s (to a certain extent). Vaults without a doubt need tweeking to reflect this. Triple the number of the fours per vault and throw in at least one or two classic fives. Incenticize people to spend money in the faced of a character bloated game.
Skipping the 4* tier doesn’t mean completely ignoring it. It just means don’t bother chasing to collect and champion all 4s. If roster slot is the main issue while you are in 3 tier, you could also hoard heroic and event tokens as well. What you don’t open now may delay your progress, but it also prevent wasting covers due to roster slot. Keep farming 2s and dabble into pvp to earn those HP for more roster slots. Once you can afford one, you pull some of those heroic or event tokens till you can no longer roster anymore and back to hoarding. When you hit the 300 pulls of latest/command points, start deciding if the 3 latest 5s are what you want to jump into the tier with. Maybe check out the special store for alternatives, just bear in mind later tokens doesn’t count towards the ~350 pulls, and remember to save HPfor the 3 additional roster slots too.
First- what you seem to be recommending here - to hoard cp so you don’t waste pulls when you can’t roster things - is sound advice. Hoarding when you have no HP to roster stuff = good, makes sense. But “hoarding so you don’t waste ressources” has nothing to do with deliberately skipping the 4* tier. That’s a reasonable thing to do, no matter where you are in the game.
Second- I fail to see how you aren’t completely ignoring the 4* tier like this; you aren’t going to champ even a single 4* from event or heroic tokens, the 4* pull rate from them is simply too low and you get too few of them. All you’re going to get that way are a bunch of 1- or 2-cover 4* for essential characters. That’s not “don’t bother chasing to champ all 4*”, that’s deliberately skipping all 4* play to go directly from 3* to 5* play. Pretty much everything I wrote above was exactly in answer to that. /shrug.
so i got 3 x 10 heroic pulls plus 3 form my alliance ranking on seaons end…after pulling got 3 more heorics from leveling… pulled 1 - 4star gwen from it total… more and more i feel like skipping 4 star and just hoarding to 5 is the way to go