Why I Believe Bonus Heroes Is the Biggest Nerf Yet

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Hi,

Day 1094 vet here. I have every character, of my champs I have 5 x 5* champed, 34 x 4* champed (including the two limiteds), all 3s champed, and a functioning 2 farm.

In the pursuit of the tier that I am on, I decided to champ every 3 and 4* character. I succeeded in the 3s. The 4s were a moving target but I’d cash in an LT, which I had a 68% chance of getting a character I could apply a champ level to. If I didn’t get that champ cover, I’d focus on who I did get as the next character to champ. It’s always a race though with the constant stream of new 4*s being released.

Pulling heroics was no problem at all. With 100% champed, I could apply all and collect all those tasty champ rewards. I now have 4 max champed, but 3 of them are from products of the 2* farm, so I rostered dupes of those three. I have one non-farm 3* max champed and about to have 2 more.

Why is this all important?

Because with the Bonus Hero Nerf, I’ve gone from a 68% 4* champ cover success rate down to a 25% champ cover success rate.

DEVILS ADVOCATE: So just use the same strategy and champ those other!

My response: But one of the reasons I am able to consistently champ a 4* every 10 days or so is that I get all those champ rewards including iso, HP, and CP from the majority of 4*s that I already champed.

DEVILS ADVOCATE: But BONUS HEROES! You now have a 5% chance of getting a bonus hero!

My response: Sigh. If I happen to get that cover, which are drastically smaller odds of getting a usable cover from before, I still have that first non-usable 4* cover. And champing them next is going to be, more often then not, impossible. 75% of those 4*s are undercovered. And if I happen to pull the one color that I have maxed, I’m destined to have to sell that cover.

Heroics went from having a 98% 3* success rate down to a 85% success rate.

And the 5s? Even if you are lucky enough to grab a 5 at that reported 15% rate, you have an even more abysmal 5% of that bonus 5*, you know, the one you actually wanted. And hopefully that bonus 5* (if not already champed) is not something you have cover maxed.

Currently I have 2x5s hearted, 2x4s hearted, and 1 x 3* hearted. All all see is hearts on my inventory screen. Empty hearts. Much like my heart is empty with this feature.

The only way to guarantee a cover is to play for progression rewards now. But with new characters still being released on their record pace, every 4th event will feature that new character as a progression, making further progress even more difficult.

But that’s just my two cents. Maybe others are having more success. I’ve pulled about 15 tokens of various Heroic+ levels and have pulled one Bonus Hero. That’s 6.6% so beating the odds there, I guess.

2

I think it worth saying that I would have been 100% on board with Bonus Heroes and applauded it with much gusto if they would not have taken characters out of the tokens.

#onestepforwardtwostepsback

3

Dropping in the Bonus heroes with changes to tokens would be an amazing addition. But God forbid the players would get more covers…

Non the less - I don’t mind the update that much (a bit different level of play - no 5* championed but 23 4* done). If I knew I would probably skip couple of 4* on my quest to champion them all. That would give me iso to play with the new ones or with 5*.

I will now focus on getting champions levels for a selected group of 4* (what I see as a top 5-8 heroes) and pretty much ignore the rest of 4* tier. I don’t think it was the intended behavior but I see it as the best strategy going forward. Still - I will miss the championing rewards…

4

I think a lot of people are getting a bit deceived when see that 1:20 label on their 5* favorites. It isn’t 1 out of 20 draws you’ll get that. Its 1 out of 20 of the draws that happen to already be 5* draws, which is already 3 out of 20, where you’ll get that. So the real odds of that juicy bonus 5* end up at 3 out of 400.

5

This is my main takeaway as well.

6

I think so too. I mean, the odds aren’t really that great, and ultimately it is just another flashy show to ooh and ahh the people that are bad at math. But an extra 5* of my choice every 1 out of 133 draws isn’t a bad thing, by any means. Yet, being blindsided by new token odds that have an effect on every pull is a major disruption.

7

I am literally 3 characters away from having all 3 stars championed. I been VIP and spent a good amount of money and could have moved into 4/5 star land long ago. My plan was to actually champion all 4 stars like yourself even if it took 1000+ days. I have hung back just stuck with getting 3 star covers, championed them, enjoyed it.

Well I been hording a long time doing that (2 days too long apparently!). I only pretty much play PvE/collect/champion and I ask myself. Why would I now even move into 4/5 star transition now? It wouldn’t do anything to help me really. Before I could have gotten into competitive PvP. With way things are stacked now with the selections I am now given it actually would hurt me PvE wise. Since it is newest characters it becomes a constant ISO chase. Only 2 of the given 4 stars would I consider championing first out of the complete pool of characters.

I literally don’t know why I would leave 3 star land to champion most the 4 stars in the currently vault. Literally those characters would help in PvP some (Yet much weaker compared to older players) but actually hurt me in PvE. Looking at long term game I could actually recycle 3 stars and be better off than building 5 stars.

Only thing this does is cause an ISO chase since it will be “newest” 12. It does nothing to actually help simply by the pool selection in front of me. Again, reason being. It is complete ISO chase now if I partake in it. So just staying in 3 star land. Hording and hoping they make changes to selections. No point in championing most of these. They will be a hindrance not a help.

8

I don’t think it is a Nerf at all, you were competitive before and you are still competitive now-- The She-Thor / Xforce now that was a nerf !! icon_e_smile.gif

I think the biggest impact is to people who are trying to develop a strong 4* roster - limiting their access to some oldie but goodie 4* is going to be tough.

I just don’t see the reason why they limited the token pool; true, people were complaining that it was too diluted but the “favorite system” would have done a good job of helping with that IMO

9

We were promised Quality of Life change. Such a change in principle should be all upside and no downside. However a lot of people see this as a negative QoL change which is strange and should not be happening. And keep in mind that I am one of the guys who actually sees the positive (pissed off at the wasted ISO on about 10 4* that I shouldn’t have champion - that is 3,5M iso that I could have in the bank if I new about this change).

10

I posted this in the master thread but I’ll put it here too

This change is bad to game breaking for everyone, it invalidates every 4 star.png
champion that is not
1: One of the most recent 12, and
2: A favorite

@5% if you open 100 LTs/month it will take 20 months to level ONE 4 star.png
from 270-370, compounded each time you split your faves

Everyone else is a complete iso write off. Placement, progression, vaults, if your lucky you’ll see 3-4 covers/ YEAR for characters out of the draw pool

11

As a long-term 3/4 transition player, working on champing the last of my 3 star.png
s, this is not really a “quality of life” improvement. Oh, it’s a change, but a negative change in the sense that now I have to put my effort toward the newest 4 star.png
with a minor chance of directing a bonus to the one I’d like to finish. Works fine, by the way, for the 3s, which have a range of 20 and a much higher frequency of pulls.

For 4s, my single favorite must be toward a completion target–there is no other reasonable way forward. Once it’s covered I’ll switch to someone else not current. In the meantime the deluge of new 4 star.png
will continue and I’ll end up with maybe 4-5 covers on each before they wash out of “current”.

MPQ now desperately needs a dedicated 3/4 token, similar to the Elite token, as a transition and advancement reward. Even better if it rewarded only “non-current” 4 star.png
characters otherwise mostly inaccessible to the general population.

Really, “quality of life” now means “this content is time-gated and you’re out of luck if you need it for Crash/nodes later!”

As a VIP players this is disappointing… but I’m VIP for the intercepts not the daily rewards.

–Khanwulf

12

A lot of what the OP says mirrors my own thoughts and experience with this update so far.

I’ve been hoarding for months due to less than desirable pull rates on 5* covers and the irritation of wasted 4* covers that I did get. I had decided that I would do my best to stack the deck for the 4* covers that I was getting more than enough of by hoarding and champing all fully covered 4* characters. That started near the end of October. I managed a hoard of 4765 CP by yesterday (and 171 LT’s - still hoarding those).

I champed War Machine, Mr. F, Elektra, Spider-Gwen, Kate, Venom (Eddie), Sam Cap, MK, KP, Cholk, Drax, Bucky, IW, Wasp and Spider-Woman in preparation. Of the 45 characters available in tokens I had 36 (80%) of them champed and waiting for rewards. I had 1.2m ISO stocked for the outside chance of other characters getting completed, with fingers crossed for 5* (to go with my OML). I held out for an extra month to save that ISO and to let the whispers of this Bonus Hero thing to come out. That could only be good right?

Then Bonus Heroes dropped with the character limitations… my odds of pulling an already champed character fell (to 42%) and my chances of needing my ISO went way up. I started pulling Classics with my CP as I had already intended to do. Of the 238 pulls that I had amassed I only got through 45 of them before I had to stop. I had already completed Marvel, Cage and Gwenpool (Blade also but with no extra covers pending). My ISO stock mostly depleted. My champ rewards negligible. Edit: Not a single Bonus Hero in any of those pulls. And the 4* covers I hated wasting? Yeah, I already have 5 of them with the clock ticking.

I have a bunch of 4* that will be stagnant except for when prizes rotate to them every however many months, I’m playing catch-up with ISO again and that whole 5* transition thing won’t be going anywhere while I’m sitting on my hoard.

If this is the new reality, I’ll adjust to it. Sort of like how I was trying to adjust to it since October. But I can’t say that overall I’m not disheartened by the character limitations and their impact on what I’m trying to achieve.

13

Tbh I feel that ppl overreacting. Sure atm you might be in small disadvantage as your 4* champ rewards will slow down but soon you’ll have new added to that group and they’ll start rolling. You can still keep getting older champs via getting top10 in pve or top5 in pvp, you can also use bonus hero feature to chase those chars that are close to significant reward (ie anything that sits at *8 or 9 covers). Im at even worse situation that Pheregas as I’ve took a break from mpq just after peggy event so now out of 12 4 that are in packs I have only one champed - Moon Knight and 25 other champions that won’t give me rewards now. Im getting one new champ in around 7-10 days, so it’s at faster pace than they’re throwing new 4 at us. It’s also excelent feature for all those new players or those that starting 3 to 4 transition. For them it’s an opportunity to enter new area, start with strong 4 characters and ejoy it. So just keep playing for 2-3 months and you won’t see a difference anylonger.

14

Lol at getting 4s from top 10 pve/pvp. Making 4 star progression in pvp, even for a developed 4 star player, is an uphill battle much less making placement.

15

It’s 1h of playing and shielding at the end to score reward for progression, most of the time leaving you with top10/25 place, rarery enough to score top5.

16

It seems to me that this change really hurts completionist players the most. I’ve been trying to collect and champion everyone. If I continue playing and try to make the game fun, I’ll need to pivot and try to focus on the best 4* players in the token pool and make them my Bonus Heroes, and toss out any hope of championing everyone. It will be rough as it’s in my nature to “collect them all”.

17

Psst… buy a Bugle Pittance instead next time, you save money and still get ad-free Intercepts!

18

I read it as, for 3 and 4 stars, a 17% chance to get a bonus whenever you pull a 3/4. The 5% is just what happens if you take the entirety of a heroic pack into consideration.

I didn’t see any talk of the % of the 5*s.

19

How long does the ad-free status last when you buy a pittance? The full month?

20

All all see is hearts on my inventory screen. Empty hearts. Much like my heart is empty with this feature.

Pure poetry TC! Someone should write a sad power ballad about MPQ with this as the refrain! icon_lol.gif