Another recent bit of news was the addition of Command Points. These points are hard to get and they can be turned in for 4-star characters with a chance at getting a rare 5-star. How has this addition been received?
Most players are really happy with the addition of Command Points; it's hard to see a downside in adding a new way to get 4 and 5-star characters. The biggest pain point that we need to address is the random way you earn them as mission rewards, something we're certainly hoping to address this year.
Speaking of Command Points, trading 25 of them in for a character token seems a bit high, considering how tough they are to get for non-hardcore players. Similarly, the cost of using CP to improve a 5-star character's powers is a staggering 720 CP. Doesn't that seem excessive?? Are there any plans to adjust these amounts?
One of the biggest challenges we have with MPQ is providing a great experience to players on their first day, all the way through Day 800, which we hit. Couple this with differing levels of play and vastly different amounts of time invested, and you'll get a really broad experience where not everything you see is intended for every player.
For me, 720 CP is a lot, but we have players chasing that goal. Regarding the cost of a Legendary Token, we do have some interesting news: We'll be launching a new 4* or better token for 20 CP in mid-January, as a cheaper option for the folks making their transition to a 4* team.
Moving on to another topic, we've seen an explosion in the number of 4-star characters during 2015, but very few additions in the 1, 2, and 3-star tiers. Are there any more of these characters coming?
We don't have any plans for new 1-3 star characters, but there's a good reason for this. At each rarity tier, the powers and complexity of characters goes way up, which is why at higher tiers, your characters have much cooler abilities. At some point in each rarity tier, the available powers for each character start to saturate, and new characters aren't as interesting because there's an older character that does almost everything the new character does. At forty 3-star characters, this started coming up more often.
As a result, new 3-star characters were overlooked because they just aren't that different from someone you already have covered. One personal example of this for me is Kamala Khan and Grey Suit Black Widow, who both have purple and green powers with similar effects. As a result, as much as I love Kamala, she doesn't get nearly as much love in my roster as my fully leveled Grey Suit Black Widow.
We continue creating new powers that let our 4 and 5-stars do more varied and interesting things, which makes for a more interesting game as you progress, and means there's more to look forward to as you continue playing.
Also in regards to the lower tiers, are there any plans to add events using them? Roster slots are relatively expensive, and most of the low-rank characters go completely ignored except during the Balance of Power event and a few other select times. It would be nice to have a reason to keep them around, or to give new players without high-powered rosters something to compete in. Any plans there?
This is difficult to keep fun and balanced. All players want richer rewards, but being able to obtain richer rewards with lower rarity characters makes it too easy to advance, and this causes boredom. So that's the challenge, and it's one we've thought about but we don't have a solution that makes MPQ way more fun. If it's not fun, what's the point?
A complaint I've heard often from newer players is that making the jump between star tiers is still too difficult, and that the game is too slanted towards longtime players or those who are able to drop a lot of cash into play. Specifically, 1 and 2-star characters are easy to get, 3-star characters are more common now (especially with the Deadpool Daily) but there seems to be a gap when trying to bridge the gap between 3 and 4-star.
From your perspective, what's the transition path players should be shooting for? Are players expected to hit the 1K mark in PVP as the standard way of growing their 4-star stable? That's a fairly serious task, and maybe a bit too much for some players to commit to?
Great question! This is super interesting to us, and something we're going to spend a lot of effort on in 2016. Fundamentally, we have a lot of players that push really hard when they play, so lowering reward tiers removes the challenge and thrill of play for our most engaged players.
That said, we've made a big push to litter MPQ with obtainable Legendary Tokens to help the average player along the 4-star transition. If you play daily, you'll easily be able to pick up a Legendary Token as the Progression reward in Story events. You'll also pull a few out of the Deadpool Daily Vault. I've personally been able to get an additional cover out of the new Versus SHIELD Simulator reward at 2K points for the last few seasons. Command Points will also help, you'll find it's possible to earn at least one a day.
Finally, we're also launching a huge new feature that will definitely shake up MPQ: Champions. After you have fully leveled a 2-star (or better) character, you can add new covers you get to take the character past their level cap. With each additional cover, you'll also earn juicy rewards, like more Iso-8, Hero Points, Command Points and Legendary Tokens. We think this makes every cover you get interesting again, and the Command Points and Legendary Tokens will also help to speed up your progression.
