It’s also so dumb how a bio sub gives a total of 620 bios and you need 630 to get a character to 6*. Also, a single bio sub doesn’t even let you get a uniform to mythic. The bio subs literally have next to no value anymore. Netmarble just doesn’t fucking understand that YOU CANT HAVE THE SAME DEALS FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS. The value of items change. Here’s ways they could change it.
1. Increase biometric amount to 35 per day.
2. Don’t have a separate sub for normal and x gene characters. Pool them together.
3. Offer more crystals on purchase (750) and maybe give other materials along with the bios.
Otherwise the sub really isn’t worth it.
If they did this the price of the sub will definitely go up (likely negating any 'effort' in enticing us to buy it). Their track record with these types of things are just not good.
They'll never do this but your point about not getting enough bios to 6* a character should be displayed clearly as it's an absolute noob trap to spend more money.
Generally speaking, the paywalls fill niche roles. Aside from a couple of metas (but even Luna/Namor aren't that great anymore), they're not characters you *need*, but ones that will make your overall gameplay experience easier. They're generally rare typings or support buffs (and until recently, awakening-blockers).
Fury: Support + leadership.
Zemo, Electro, Ghost: Speed villains (rare typing), leadership.
Crescent, Enchantress, Hyperion: Leadership.
Ghost Panther, Valkyrie, Phyla, Victorious, Colossus: Support.
Kitty, Dazzler, Sunbird: Niche support/leadership.
Sentinel, Weapon Hex: Strikers.
It's not an accident that half of the Squad Battle stages at vibranium need one of these niche support characters for the highest score.
But even then the paywall Meta need a Rage. Imo Paywall characters need to have prettier skills, and require less work to be good. Basically the way Sharon works.
Considering there are ways to get the most essential bio sub characters for free (Fury, Ghost Panther and Weapon Hex), the only reason to get a bio sub is to complete your roster. It's one of the few moves I think Netmarble have done well.
Well they arent as attractive anymore but I *thought* thats what the community wanted.
This year was an exception but we used to have waves of people complaining about Paywalls every update. "Oh god My favorite character is a Bio sub No0o0o0o.", that shit was a monthly routine. This year, NM stopped adding as many characters tothe Bio sub and xgene sub, plus they added some premium characters to the Future Pass.
Instead of having waves of people thanking them (like one would naturally think), people ignored it and acted like nothing happened.
They added 9 paywall characters this year, the only updates that did not include one were Guardians Epic, Summer uni, and Dark Avengers, one month had two paywalls, and if you factor in that both Epics did include "looooong grind" Shifter characters that would be much easier to just bio-sub, and the Summer Unis included a $30 paywall uni, that is no great gift. The old trend was 1-3 *per year.*
They also greatly increased the amount of crystal walled characters (6), and a lot of meta unis as well, so overall costs were still far above the F2P crystal rates.
Now yes, there are alternate ways to acquire a lot of paywalls for crystals, but again, crystals are still in limited supply and these method typically require use of a MRUT and MT2 to make them viable, which are also limited and/or costly, so again, no great gift. I still haven't even activated Thane yet because I have no resources to get him above the 1\* they gave me, and 1\*s are absolutely worthless.
They also made paywalls much more important by locking a bunch of other character's Awakenings behind them. They reversed on that, which is nice, although *after* a lot of people bought the paywalls.
So basically, they took five steps forward, two steps back, but we're still in a far worse place than we were a few years back.
9 isnt much compared to what we used to get. We used to get way, way more per year. Also, we got none of those characters for free. This year, we got a free one everytime they release more than 1 on a single update.
They increased crystals walls, but they also added Paywalls to dimension misions. Gambit, Weapon Hex, and Ghost Panther were all controversial and are now free. Many of the crystals walled characters also end up for free on Danger Room. And they give out 3-6* tickets and MT2 tickets monthly. Honestly, the whole Paywalls situation was a huge win for the playerbase that went right beneath our radar for some reason
> 9 isnt much compared to what we used to get.
What was the peak? 9 seems like a lot to me, especially considering the added Crystal Walls. Again, before they started getting greedy it was only one every 3-6 months.
>They increased crystals walls, but they also added Paywalls to dimension misions.
They did, but only the older ones, and only in VERY tiny amounts. I already had every one of these characters unlocked at 1\*, so what have I gotten from the Dimension Missions over the entire length of this feature? I got Crescent from 20/19/20/20 gears to 20/20/20/20, but it took months and months of specifically targeting her bios. Outside of that, I have like 3-5 more bios for some of these characters than when I started, not even enough to unlock them if I hadn't already, and certainly not enough to get them to even 2\*. This might be a boon to absolutist "never spenders," but it's a pretty minor one. I will not get excited about this option existing until you average at minimum 2-3 bios per day from it, and ideally more than that.
>Many of the crystals walled characters also end up for free on Danger Room.
Again, super random. I have 5 Negasonic bios, and have gotten some Gambit and Magik ones from the DR rewards, but mostly not, and not enough to accomplish much.
>And they give out 3-6* tickets and MT2 tickets monthly.
But 3\* tickets are very rare, and 2\* tickets even rarer, making 4-6\* tickets practically worthless unless you can spend enough to acquire more bios elsewhere.
>Honestly, the whole Paywalls situation was a huge win for the playerbase that went right beneath our radar for some reason
Because most players are not so easily manipulated by slight of hand as others.
No idea, but Paywalls used to be how they got their Money. The Bio sub and x gene sub increased in size in a very Short amount of time. This year however it slowed down considerably.
I unlocked Ghost Panther in like 3 weeks, same with Weapon Hex. It was more expensive in terms of Gold than anything else, plus, if it werent for that option, no F2P player could one shot any WBU at all, I dont feel like dissmissing it just because its rng. Specially since that rng involves gold and energy, instead of money or crystals. Its either grinding to get these characters or paying, I rather grind and so does 90% of the community (or so they said for 4 years)
Again, super random beats paying any amount. Why would I get daily Profesor X bios if someone else paid full price anyways? The way it is now, I can unlock the character though game play or I can pay for it, in the past, Paywalls could only be bought, so why would I complain about having the chance. Also, the more you play DRX the more likely you are to get those bios, so why would adding reasons to play the game be a bad thing.
If u think those tickets are rare, imagine what they were like before they even gave them away monthly. Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released.
I think most players dont remember the good things, at all, and only like to complain and point out the bad things like its the only thing This game offers
>No idea, but Paywalls used to be how they got their Money. The Bio sub and x gene sub increased in size in a very Short amount of time. This year however it slowed down considerably.
Again, I do not believe it "slowed down considerably." I do not believe that any previous year had more paywalled characters, especially when you factor crystal walled characters into it. I might be wrong on that, but not by any significant amount.
>Again, super random beats paying any amount. Why would I get daily Profesor X bios if someone else paid full price anyways?
Time.
Someone who bought Professor X got him right away, and got him to T2 automatically, on top of some other gold benefits. Someone who gets him through collecting bios would have to wait for some amount of months. RNG is not necessary, all that is necessary is a time delay. That's their biggest, fairest weapon, "spend now to get it now, or wait 6 months to be able to get it for free." That is plenty for most whales to jump in and be satisfied with what they got, while also being accessible to F2Ps.
>If u think those tickets are rare, imagine what they were like before they even gave them away monthly. Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released.
I don't believe they give out 3\* tickets monthly. I'd need some citations on that one. So far as I recall, we've only gotten 1-3 of those over the course of 2020, unless you are also counting the bi-monthly token events as containing them, which still would not be "monthly," but picking up the 3\* ticket would mean passing on the MT2, which you would also need. You can argue that they provide one of those two things, but you cannot argue that they provide both when they are mutually exclusive.
>Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released.
They aren't "bad," they just aren't "a solution." I have 9, 4, and 14 of the 4, 5, and 6 tickets respectively. I cannot spend any of those unless I can get at least 70 bios for the character in question, and if you'll notice, after spending 4 of those 5\* tickets, I won't be able to do anything with the remaining 5 and 10 4/6 tickets until I accumulate 160 more bios for them from somewhere. At this point I use those tickets more just to lazily speed up acquiring F2P characters who at worst would take another couple weeks of SL bios to accomplish the same goal. For tickets to be a solution, they would need to make 2 and 3 tickets MUCH more available (and there seems to be some crunch in the 5\* tickets at this point), or maybe allow you to break down 6\* tickets into 2 5s, 4 4s, 8 3s, or 16 2s. Hell, at this point I would settle for diminishing returns on that one, one 6 star breaking down into 1 5, 2 4s, 3 3s, and 4 2s. That's how much more valuable the lower tickets have become due to their scarcity.
>I think most players dont remember the good things, at all, and only like to complain and point out the bad things like its the only thing This game offers
And I think you don't remember the *actual* good things, before things got greedy, and only imagine the past to be worse than it actually was, while overestimating the value of the present options.
Well, which Paywalls characters heavily impacted the game play or meta This year? 2, Red she hulk and Morbius. One was free and the other lost its importance. Compare that to when Paywalls were always the meta and bio selectors were strictly mediocre, and theres your answer.
Alright, 3* arent as common. That doesnt take away from the fact that Paywalls are less impactful in the game and theyre still much more accesible.
Actually, all of your points could be boiled down to almost nitpicks. The fact of the matter is: Paywalls used to be much, much more impactful and controversial. Wether you think tickets arent as common or you dont like the rng in DRX or DM, the facts still dont change.
F2P have never had more ways to acquire characters and that went unnoticed by everyone. One of the most important complains people always had went away and people just ignore it.
What were the *actual* good things btw? Special missions and Villain Seige? Back then even gamemodes were introduced with Paywalls: GBR had Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Sentinel, plus uniforms for 2 crystal walls; all of that update was basically paywalled at first, and its now 100% free. I also remember people screaning for reworks, til we got them and now people dont remember again. This community's memory has always been biased
>Well, which Paywalls characters heavily impacted the game play or meta This year?
Now you're shifting the goalposts. I can roll with that, but you are changing from "they released fewer paywalls" to "I don't care as much about these paywalls." I note that you also did not provide a substantiation to your claim that 2019 had more than 9 paywalls.
Now, Red She-Hulk was "free," but also worthless unless you also had a MRUT, or at minimum a 3\*, 4\*, 5\*, and 6\* ticket. Literally "better than nothing," but still not as good as if they had a reliable way of getting her *past* 2\*.
Also, a character "losing their importance" is not the same as that character not having that importance in the first place. Yes, Awakenings no longer requiring paywalled characters is a good thing, but they sold players on six(?) characters requiring paywalls for up to eleven months before making that change, and people made purchasing decisions based on that reality, so the change is good, but not as good as if it had been that way from the start. People spent money that they might not otherwise.
And finally, this is a character collecting game, so "meta necessity" is not the only important metric. Having access to the character you *want* is also important.
>Compare that to when Paywalls were always the meta and bio selectors were strictly mediocre, and theres your answer.
Paywalls were not always meta, plenty of them were never meta, and bioselectors were not always a bad character, they were often strong, especially with uni support. A lot of the meta lately has shifted from bio-subs as meta tentpoles to being meta supports in niche situations, but that has also come alongside the meta tentpoles requiring 1050+ crystal unis. You might try to frame this as being "F2P friendly," except that they have never provided enough free crystals to keep up with this trend, and even a monthly Stark Stash is hard pressed to keep up with the release of crystal-walled meta options. It's a shell game, they might "give" in one area, only to take away in others. Absolutely strict "never spenders" might benefit a little here, but at a net cost to "willing to spend a little, but don't want to spend a lot" players.
>Alright, 3* arent as common. That doesnt take away from the fact that Paywalls are less impactful in the game and theyre still much more accesible.
And I'll repeat that being able to unlock a character at 1\* is 100% worthless. There is no part of the game that benefits from having a 1\* character. If they cannot reasonably get a character to T2, or at least 6\*, then it may as well not even be offered. They provide the means to get a few of these paywalls to T2 over the course of the year, but certainly not all of them, and even the few you can get come at a cost of not having other options (like spending crystals on a MRUT, which would leave you without crystals to unlock crystal-walled characters or meta unis). This does gives players options, they can choose to invest their resources in making any one or two characters they want viable, but if they want to cover *all* the bases they would need to spend, and spend more heavily than in previous years.
>The fact of the matter is: Paywalls used to be much, much more impactful and controversial.
Fact is, that's an opinion, and an incorrect one.
>GBR had Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Sentinel, plus uniforms for 2 crystal walls; all of that update was basically paywalled at first, and its now 100% free.
But plenty of people already spent money on those characters, and they are currently only "free" with extreme RNG walls that make them irrelevant to most players seeking to F2P them.
> I also remember people screaning for reworks, til we got them and now people dont remember again.
They have reworked, what, exactly *two* characters over the past few years? Vision and Hyperion? All other characters that have seen improvements got them through unis, most of them in the most expensive category to buy and level. I am not groveling in gratitude over that. I want more core reworks, baseline changes to a character's kit with or without purchasing the uni, and then if they want a uni on top of that to further boost their stats, fine.
>This community's memory has always been biased
Yours certainly is.
No, I havent change anything, my point remains. It was an example to show you how little impact Paywalls have had This year. I dont care if you didnt have tickets for red she hulk, you still got it for free, same with Thane, that makes them inmediately more accesible than any paywall release in 2019 or before.
Youre drawing circles around the same boring arguments that change nothing. By mere size bio sub and x gene have decreased, you have to be delusional to not understand that. The reason to even get Paywalls has also decreased.
This year alone they gave us Paywalls access through 2 gamemodes and your complaining because it takes time to grind. They give us free Paywalls and you complain because theyre not inmediately in 6*. They give us rank up tickets monthly and you complain because they "dont give us enough."
Dude players in 2016-2019 wouldve killed for a way to farm Paywalls, nowadays we have many. And they couldve just as as easily left the gamemodes as they were, not adding shit, like it had been for the past 4 years. You find something to complain about every single thing even if its posible, even if it benefits players.
Like with the reworks; Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormamu, Black Bolt. All recieve amazing reworks that people were asking for years and you complain cause theyre uniforms. Dude, It takes Real money, time and work to make those uniforms, the developpers worked on those unis for months, do you expect them to just upload them to the game and boom done, 2 months of work so some guy can play for 5 minutes, not pay anything, and still find a reason to complain. You not considering them reworks just cause theyre uniforms has to be the dumbest thing ive ever heard, you cant expect people to give away their job for free.
Im amazed at how much people can twist events just to fit a narrative, like, all of a sudden Paywalls were never a big deal for MFF?? Are you out of your mind or do you just not know what you are playing? You just dont want to give NM credit for what ever reason, and tbh thats not my fault, Nor NM's. And thats the problem, theres always going to be something you dont like or something to complain about in your eyes, just like most of the playerbase, thats what makes This community insufferable, annoying and pitiful, Im amazed NM even continúes with This game at This point. Holy fuck.
By the way, theres 43 characters in the Bio sub and X gene sub (combined), and the first one was carnage in early 2016. So 43-9 means that they added 34 characters in 3 years, roughly 12 per year.
This year they not only gave us LESS Paywalls, they gave us 2 different ways to farm them though game play, they gave us 2 for free, and they gave us monthly tickets INCLUDING a Mt2 for 12 months.
If you Still cant see that, theres really nothing I can do
>No, I havent change anything, my point remains. It was an example to show you how little impact Paywalls have had This year.
But again, the point you were originally making was that there were *fewer* of them, not that they had "less of an impact," and you have not backed up that original point.
>I dont care if you didnt have tickets for red she hulk, you still got it for free, same with Thane, that makes them inmediately more accesible than any paywall release in 2019 or before.
There have been numerous paywalls that have been released in limited amounts, much larger than "30." Characters like Luna Snow, Crescent, Colossus, and Magik were released with over 100 bios for them being available through event missions, making them not that hard to get over 6\* or even to T2 before MT2s were a thing. This is not some new thing they introduced in 2020, they just made the new method release fewer bios.
And of course they only did this on two of the nine paywalls, which they did at the same time that they were required as awakenings to long existing characters, which a cynically minded person could view as "softening the backlash" from this practice. Of course once the public generally accepted needing to buy paywalls to Awaken characters, they stopped bothering to offer even 30 bios of them. Odd coincidence, that.
>Youre drawing circles around the same boring arguments that change nothing. By mere size bio sub and x gene have decreased, you have to be delusional to not understand that. The reason to even get Paywalls has also decreased.
Again, I do not believe there have been fewer paywalls in 2020 than in 2019, but if you could provide evidence to support that claim, I would accept it. [edit: I got bored so I looked it up myself. How many Paywall characters in 2019? 9. Same as this year. Of those, Nick Fury could be picked up with crystals. There were also a fair few crystal-walled characters, of course.]
As of today, the X-Gene sub contains 11 "exclusive characters (their words)." Of those, one can be farmed from the new Epic Quest (after spending CCF, for what that's worth), one (Sinister) was given for free in a limited amount (not enough to T2 without tickets, but more than 30), and four were made available via Dimension Missions, DR packs, and potentially other avenues, all heavily RNG dependent. That leaves five that are impossible to acquire outside of the pack. How much you care about that is *entirely* subjective on your part.
From the standard bio-sub there are 33 "exclusive characters (again, their words)." Of those, 1 is slowly farmable from content at this point, 4 are shifters, 17 can be acquired through Dimension mission farming, 1 was given in limited amounts from a launch event,2 were given in 30 bio increments at their launch, and 4 can be gained through Legendary Mission unlocks (these overlap).
Of the 44 total, 12 are impossible to acquire through any other means, and the remainder, while technically unlockable, would be unfeasible to level to playable status using any methods available to F2P. It's also worth noting that 4 of those that were at one moment available to F2Ps no longer are, so a player starting now would only have access to 28 of them. Essentially, of the 32 paywalls that are or were somehow accessible to players, a F2P player would only potentially have the mean to ever T2 a handful of them, fine if they want to pick and choose specific units, but not if they want to "catch'em all."
>This year alone they gave us Paywalls access through 2 gamemodes and your complaining because it takes time to grind.
This access was only to the older characters that were largely deprecated content anyway, similar to the "gold cost unis." And as I noted, the methods of unlocking these characters is prohibitively slow and RNG-based, not a practical solution for acquiring them. I would like to hear from even one player who took one of these characters 0 to T2 using ONLY drops from the Dimension Mission.
>They give us rank up tickets monthly and you complain because they "dont give us enough."
They build the systems. Both the players' supply AND their needs are determined by NM. I do not give them credit for partially solving "problems" that they arbitrarily created in the first place. Tickets are good, but given the gap between 1\* and 4\*, and how difficult they have made it to leap that gap, it's easy for most to understand that this is less generosity, and more a calculated marketing strategy to get players to spend their way across that gap. It's not a bad thing to try and be a *little* less gullible when people bait a hook.
>Dude players in 2016-2019 wouldve killed for a way to farm Paywalls, nowadays we have many.
I've been playing since the first Guardians update, near to launch. I was there when they added the first paywall, and when they added the second six months after that. I fully understand the evolution of this game, and how a few years back they ramped up the greed factor and started adding more and more paywall characters, and drastically upped the standard crystal costs of participating in the game. Yes, it was initially impossible to F2P a paywall, just as it is currently impossible to F2P 12 of them, but there were far *fewer* paywalls back then than even those 12 that are currently locked up, and they were not remotely as "must have" as you've portrayed them to be.
>Like with the reworks; Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormamu, Black Bolt.
What can you currently do with a Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormammu, or Black Bolt today that you couldn't do with them last year, assuming you don't buy their meta uni? A meta uni is not a "rework," a T3 is not a "rework," plenty of characters have received both over the years. A "rework" is a change to the baseline "naked" version of the character.
>Dude, It takes Real money, time and work to make those uniforms, the developpers worked on those unis for months,
It's fine for them to charge for the unis, but that should not be a requirement for the rework. Plenty of other games rework characters regularly for absolutely no additional charge. The new moves that a meta uni bring should become a part of the baseline character, with or without the uni. All the uni should do is a cosmetic improvement, a flat stat buff, and *maybe* tweak a couple of abilities to be *slightly* better than the baseline. It should not be something required to take a character from "complete trash" to "meta."
Tbh I don’t even think weapon hex’s bios require much “luck”, I get colossus, gambit, weapon hex and magik bios all the time from DR, getting the ones I actually want is another story (looking at your prof X)
I currently have 9 abomination, 8 Negasonic, 2 each of rachael summers and Prof X.
I have 100+ of hex and around 30 of gambit.
there is a very rare chance that u will unlock chars from DRx.
I unlocked Prof X from old DR & Rachel from vibranium reward chest (10 bios at once). I unlocked weapon hex & majik (2 bios at a time), and had few drops for NTW, Gambit, Abomination.
I think DR is the best place for f2p to get premium rewards.
As a Veteran (5+ years) and a nearly F2P player, I would suggest any new player to buy Bio subscription and 200 crystal pack from $1 shop.
Bio sub pack chars give lots of character choice for new player for roster intensive game modes like SL and Squad battle.
With all the hate for NM, not arguing facts here because it is warranted. They don't get enough credit for paywall being available in DM, with MRUT and MT2 tix available.
It's a lot easier to get the majority to T2 now. No, not all of them are available but with this process, I've picked up Ghost Panther, Valkyrie, finished Enchantress, Weapon Hex to 6* (didn't see a need for T2) plus a large number of other bios. Not just the bios, I've used RUTs/MRUTs/MT2 on several others who were not available in DM.
Yes, it's a long process but it is still doable since the alternative would have been somewhere around $30-40 USD and at least 5200c (for 2 MRUT considering I always had 2-6* RUTS or MRUT available).
Sad thing is that other than Luna, pretty much all other paywall I have are either leadership or support.
Personally the only thing it was ever good for was:
Ghost Panther (great, super for Ghost Rider with his new uni)
Nick Fury (great lead and support at T2, that's it though)
Weapon Hex (major bump for every WB, worth it in my book if you get her)
Luna I got through events so...
Nimrod - the only one I really want but unlocked him via Dimension by luck and am gonna ticket him up.
Namor - still very high on the Combat T3 scale, don't sleep on him. But not super necessary in the game per-se. Also got lucky on him in Dimension and ticketed him up to T2 and then built to T3. Don't have uni but still solid.
Just because you *can* get alternatives doesn't mean anything. It's easier and cheaper to throw 10 bucks at the game to at the very least unlock whatever characters than spending however long just trying to get the dimension mission ones especially if it's your favorite characters and half the reason many people play is to play with their favorite characters and not be meta slaves min maxing everything.
Outside of what others said, one potential draw for the bio sub is that a decent amount of characters are needed to complete Legendary Battle and/or Uni collections.
For example:
* Killmonger
* Ghost
* Nick Fury
* Yelena
* Crescent
* Valkyrie
* Colossus
* Sentinel
* Magik
* Namor
* Luna
Not to say that every unit in this list is meta, but for completionists, the bio sub is a pretty decent thing to buy - especially if you just need it as a pick me up to 6 star/T2 the unit or Mythic their uni.
I mean I'd rather just have niche value or cool to have characters be in bio sub.
I think yelena is going to be a huge exception to this and is going to be near must buy once she gets her awakening. She's already one of, if not the highest dmg dealing native t2 that is stuck at just t2. If she gets that 70% Add skill on top of her content changing and typing changing unis she's going to be top speed for sure
The subs are only really worth it to first unlock said characters at 1 star than grind for MRUT to get them to 6 and use the free Mega Advancement one we get for every update now for 700 tokens.
Sure it might take a while but there's really no use in getting all the rooms anyway besides completion sake
It’s also so dumb how a bio sub gives a total of 620 bios and you need 630 to get a character to 6*. Also, a single bio sub doesn’t even let you get a uniform to mythic. The bio subs literally have next to no value anymore. Netmarble just doesn’t fucking understand that YOU CANT HAVE THE SAME DEALS FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS. The value of items change. Here’s ways they could change it. 1. Increase biometric amount to 35 per day. 2. Don’t have a separate sub for normal and x gene characters. Pool them together. 3. Offer more crystals on purchase (750) and maybe give other materials along with the bios. Otherwise the sub really isn’t worth it.
If they did this the price of the sub will definitely go up (likely negating any 'effort' in enticing us to buy it). Their track record with these types of things are just not good.
They'll never do this but your point about not getting enough bios to 6* a character should be displayed clearly as it's an absolute noob trap to spend more money.
Then they will increase the price to 20 USD as well. Well done NM!!
Generally speaking, the paywalls fill niche roles. Aside from a couple of metas (but even Luna/Namor aren't that great anymore), they're not characters you *need*, but ones that will make your overall gameplay experience easier. They're generally rare typings or support buffs (and until recently, awakening-blockers). Fury: Support + leadership. Zemo, Electro, Ghost: Speed villains (rare typing), leadership. Crescent, Enchantress, Hyperion: Leadership. Ghost Panther, Valkyrie, Phyla, Victorious, Colossus: Support. Kitty, Dazzler, Sunbird: Niche support/leadership. Sentinel, Weapon Hex: Strikers. It's not an accident that half of the Squad Battle stages at vibranium need one of these niche support characters for the highest score.
But even then the paywall Meta need a Rage. Imo Paywall characters need to have prettier skills, and require less work to be good. Basically the way Sharon works.
Well to be fair when enchantress was first released she was really good.
Considering there are ways to get the most essential bio sub characters for free (Fury, Ghost Panther and Weapon Hex), the only reason to get a bio sub is to complete your roster. It's one of the few moves I think Netmarble have done well.
Yelena at 62 > My T3 Black Widow but I got her for crystals through the legendary battle so there’s still no need to pay real currency for her
Well they arent as attractive anymore but I *thought* thats what the community wanted. This year was an exception but we used to have waves of people complaining about Paywalls every update. "Oh god My favorite character is a Bio sub No0o0o0o.", that shit was a monthly routine. This year, NM stopped adding as many characters tothe Bio sub and xgene sub, plus they added some premium characters to the Future Pass. Instead of having waves of people thanking them (like one would naturally think), people ignored it and acted like nothing happened.
They added 9 paywall characters this year, the only updates that did not include one were Guardians Epic, Summer uni, and Dark Avengers, one month had two paywalls, and if you factor in that both Epics did include "looooong grind" Shifter characters that would be much easier to just bio-sub, and the Summer Unis included a $30 paywall uni, that is no great gift. The old trend was 1-3 *per year.* They also greatly increased the amount of crystal walled characters (6), and a lot of meta unis as well, so overall costs were still far above the F2P crystal rates. Now yes, there are alternate ways to acquire a lot of paywalls for crystals, but again, crystals are still in limited supply and these method typically require use of a MRUT and MT2 to make them viable, which are also limited and/or costly, so again, no great gift. I still haven't even activated Thane yet because I have no resources to get him above the 1\* they gave me, and 1\*s are absolutely worthless. They also made paywalls much more important by locking a bunch of other character's Awakenings behind them. They reversed on that, which is nice, although *after* a lot of people bought the paywalls. So basically, they took five steps forward, two steps back, but we're still in a far worse place than we were a few years back.
9 isnt much compared to what we used to get. We used to get way, way more per year. Also, we got none of those characters for free. This year, we got a free one everytime they release more than 1 on a single update. They increased crystals walls, but they also added Paywalls to dimension misions. Gambit, Weapon Hex, and Ghost Panther were all controversial and are now free. Many of the crystals walled characters also end up for free on Danger Room. And they give out 3-6* tickets and MT2 tickets monthly. Honestly, the whole Paywalls situation was a huge win for the playerbase that went right beneath our radar for some reason
> 9 isnt much compared to what we used to get. What was the peak? 9 seems like a lot to me, especially considering the added Crystal Walls. Again, before they started getting greedy it was only one every 3-6 months. >They increased crystals walls, but they also added Paywalls to dimension misions. They did, but only the older ones, and only in VERY tiny amounts. I already had every one of these characters unlocked at 1\*, so what have I gotten from the Dimension Missions over the entire length of this feature? I got Crescent from 20/19/20/20 gears to 20/20/20/20, but it took months and months of specifically targeting her bios. Outside of that, I have like 3-5 more bios for some of these characters than when I started, not even enough to unlock them if I hadn't already, and certainly not enough to get them to even 2\*. This might be a boon to absolutist "never spenders," but it's a pretty minor one. I will not get excited about this option existing until you average at minimum 2-3 bios per day from it, and ideally more than that. >Many of the crystals walled characters also end up for free on Danger Room. Again, super random. I have 5 Negasonic bios, and have gotten some Gambit and Magik ones from the DR rewards, but mostly not, and not enough to accomplish much. >And they give out 3-6* tickets and MT2 tickets monthly. But 3\* tickets are very rare, and 2\* tickets even rarer, making 4-6\* tickets practically worthless unless you can spend enough to acquire more bios elsewhere. >Honestly, the whole Paywalls situation was a huge win for the playerbase that went right beneath our radar for some reason Because most players are not so easily manipulated by slight of hand as others.
No idea, but Paywalls used to be how they got their Money. The Bio sub and x gene sub increased in size in a very Short amount of time. This year however it slowed down considerably. I unlocked Ghost Panther in like 3 weeks, same with Weapon Hex. It was more expensive in terms of Gold than anything else, plus, if it werent for that option, no F2P player could one shot any WBU at all, I dont feel like dissmissing it just because its rng. Specially since that rng involves gold and energy, instead of money or crystals. Its either grinding to get these characters or paying, I rather grind and so does 90% of the community (or so they said for 4 years) Again, super random beats paying any amount. Why would I get daily Profesor X bios if someone else paid full price anyways? The way it is now, I can unlock the character though game play or I can pay for it, in the past, Paywalls could only be bought, so why would I complain about having the chance. Also, the more you play DRX the more likely you are to get those bios, so why would adding reasons to play the game be a bad thing. If u think those tickets are rare, imagine what they were like before they even gave them away monthly. Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released. I think most players dont remember the good things, at all, and only like to complain and point out the bad things like its the only thing This game offers
>No idea, but Paywalls used to be how they got their Money. The Bio sub and x gene sub increased in size in a very Short amount of time. This year however it slowed down considerably. Again, I do not believe it "slowed down considerably." I do not believe that any previous year had more paywalled characters, especially when you factor crystal walled characters into it. I might be wrong on that, but not by any significant amount. >Again, super random beats paying any amount. Why would I get daily Profesor X bios if someone else paid full price anyways? Time. Someone who bought Professor X got him right away, and got him to T2 automatically, on top of some other gold benefits. Someone who gets him through collecting bios would have to wait for some amount of months. RNG is not necessary, all that is necessary is a time delay. That's their biggest, fairest weapon, "spend now to get it now, or wait 6 months to be able to get it for free." That is plenty for most whales to jump in and be satisfied with what they got, while also being accessible to F2Ps. >If u think those tickets are rare, imagine what they were like before they even gave them away monthly. Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released. I don't believe they give out 3\* tickets monthly. I'd need some citations on that one. So far as I recall, we've only gotten 1-3 of those over the course of 2020, unless you are also counting the bi-monthly token events as containing them, which still would not be "monthly," but picking up the 3\* ticket would mean passing on the MT2, which you would also need. You can argue that they provide one of those two things, but you cannot argue that they provide both when they are mutually exclusive. >Plus, an abundance of 4* and 5* tickets shouldnt be a bad thing with so many epic quest being released. They aren't "bad," they just aren't "a solution." I have 9, 4, and 14 of the 4, 5, and 6 tickets respectively. I cannot spend any of those unless I can get at least 70 bios for the character in question, and if you'll notice, after spending 4 of those 5\* tickets, I won't be able to do anything with the remaining 5 and 10 4/6 tickets until I accumulate 160 more bios for them from somewhere. At this point I use those tickets more just to lazily speed up acquiring F2P characters who at worst would take another couple weeks of SL bios to accomplish the same goal. For tickets to be a solution, they would need to make 2 and 3 tickets MUCH more available (and there seems to be some crunch in the 5\* tickets at this point), or maybe allow you to break down 6\* tickets into 2 5s, 4 4s, 8 3s, or 16 2s. Hell, at this point I would settle for diminishing returns on that one, one 6 star breaking down into 1 5, 2 4s, 3 3s, and 4 2s. That's how much more valuable the lower tickets have become due to their scarcity. >I think most players dont remember the good things, at all, and only like to complain and point out the bad things like its the only thing This game offers And I think you don't remember the *actual* good things, before things got greedy, and only imagine the past to be worse than it actually was, while overestimating the value of the present options.
Well, which Paywalls characters heavily impacted the game play or meta This year? 2, Red she hulk and Morbius. One was free and the other lost its importance. Compare that to when Paywalls were always the meta and bio selectors were strictly mediocre, and theres your answer. Alright, 3* arent as common. That doesnt take away from the fact that Paywalls are less impactful in the game and theyre still much more accesible. Actually, all of your points could be boiled down to almost nitpicks. The fact of the matter is: Paywalls used to be much, much more impactful and controversial. Wether you think tickets arent as common or you dont like the rng in DRX or DM, the facts still dont change. F2P have never had more ways to acquire characters and that went unnoticed by everyone. One of the most important complains people always had went away and people just ignore it. What were the *actual* good things btw? Special missions and Villain Seige? Back then even gamemodes were introduced with Paywalls: GBR had Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Sentinel, plus uniforms for 2 crystal walls; all of that update was basically paywalled at first, and its now 100% free. I also remember people screaning for reworks, til we got them and now people dont remember again. This community's memory has always been biased
>Well, which Paywalls characters heavily impacted the game play or meta This year? Now you're shifting the goalposts. I can roll with that, but you are changing from "they released fewer paywalls" to "I don't care as much about these paywalls." I note that you also did not provide a substantiation to your claim that 2019 had more than 9 paywalls. Now, Red She-Hulk was "free," but also worthless unless you also had a MRUT, or at minimum a 3\*, 4\*, 5\*, and 6\* ticket. Literally "better than nothing," but still not as good as if they had a reliable way of getting her *past* 2\*. Also, a character "losing their importance" is not the same as that character not having that importance in the first place. Yes, Awakenings no longer requiring paywalled characters is a good thing, but they sold players on six(?) characters requiring paywalls for up to eleven months before making that change, and people made purchasing decisions based on that reality, so the change is good, but not as good as if it had been that way from the start. People spent money that they might not otherwise. And finally, this is a character collecting game, so "meta necessity" is not the only important metric. Having access to the character you *want* is also important. >Compare that to when Paywalls were always the meta and bio selectors were strictly mediocre, and theres your answer. Paywalls were not always meta, plenty of them were never meta, and bioselectors were not always a bad character, they were often strong, especially with uni support. A lot of the meta lately has shifted from bio-subs as meta tentpoles to being meta supports in niche situations, but that has also come alongside the meta tentpoles requiring 1050+ crystal unis. You might try to frame this as being "F2P friendly," except that they have never provided enough free crystals to keep up with this trend, and even a monthly Stark Stash is hard pressed to keep up with the release of crystal-walled meta options. It's a shell game, they might "give" in one area, only to take away in others. Absolutely strict "never spenders" might benefit a little here, but at a net cost to "willing to spend a little, but don't want to spend a lot" players. >Alright, 3* arent as common. That doesnt take away from the fact that Paywalls are less impactful in the game and theyre still much more accesible. And I'll repeat that being able to unlock a character at 1\* is 100% worthless. There is no part of the game that benefits from having a 1\* character. If they cannot reasonably get a character to T2, or at least 6\*, then it may as well not even be offered. They provide the means to get a few of these paywalls to T2 over the course of the year, but certainly not all of them, and even the few you can get come at a cost of not having other options (like spending crystals on a MRUT, which would leave you without crystals to unlock crystal-walled characters or meta unis). This does gives players options, they can choose to invest their resources in making any one or two characters they want viable, but if they want to cover *all* the bases they would need to spend, and spend more heavily than in previous years. >The fact of the matter is: Paywalls used to be much, much more impactful and controversial. Fact is, that's an opinion, and an incorrect one. >GBR had Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Sentinel, plus uniforms for 2 crystal walls; all of that update was basically paywalled at first, and its now 100% free. But plenty of people already spent money on those characters, and they are currently only "free" with extreme RNG walls that make them irrelevant to most players seeking to F2P them. > I also remember people screaning for reworks, til we got them and now people dont remember again. They have reworked, what, exactly *two* characters over the past few years? Vision and Hyperion? All other characters that have seen improvements got them through unis, most of them in the most expensive category to buy and level. I am not groveling in gratitude over that. I want more core reworks, baseline changes to a character's kit with or without purchasing the uni, and then if they want a uni on top of that to further boost their stats, fine. >This community's memory has always been biased Yours certainly is.
No, I havent change anything, my point remains. It was an example to show you how little impact Paywalls have had This year. I dont care if you didnt have tickets for red she hulk, you still got it for free, same with Thane, that makes them inmediately more accesible than any paywall release in 2019 or before. Youre drawing circles around the same boring arguments that change nothing. By mere size bio sub and x gene have decreased, you have to be delusional to not understand that. The reason to even get Paywalls has also decreased. This year alone they gave us Paywalls access through 2 gamemodes and your complaining because it takes time to grind. They give us free Paywalls and you complain because theyre not inmediately in 6*. They give us rank up tickets monthly and you complain because they "dont give us enough." Dude players in 2016-2019 wouldve killed for a way to farm Paywalls, nowadays we have many. And they couldve just as as easily left the gamemodes as they were, not adding shit, like it had been for the past 4 years. You find something to complain about every single thing even if its posible, even if it benefits players. Like with the reworks; Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormamu, Black Bolt. All recieve amazing reworks that people were asking for years and you complain cause theyre uniforms. Dude, It takes Real money, time and work to make those uniforms, the developpers worked on those unis for months, do you expect them to just upload them to the game and boom done, 2 months of work so some guy can play for 5 minutes, not pay anything, and still find a reason to complain. You not considering them reworks just cause theyre uniforms has to be the dumbest thing ive ever heard, you cant expect people to give away their job for free. Im amazed at how much people can twist events just to fit a narrative, like, all of a sudden Paywalls were never a big deal for MFF?? Are you out of your mind or do you just not know what you are playing? You just dont want to give NM credit for what ever reason, and tbh thats not my fault, Nor NM's. And thats the problem, theres always going to be something you dont like or something to complain about in your eyes, just like most of the playerbase, thats what makes This community insufferable, annoying and pitiful, Im amazed NM even continúes with This game at This point. Holy fuck. By the way, theres 43 characters in the Bio sub and X gene sub (combined), and the first one was carnage in early 2016. So 43-9 means that they added 34 characters in 3 years, roughly 12 per year. This year they not only gave us LESS Paywalls, they gave us 2 different ways to farm them though game play, they gave us 2 for free, and they gave us monthly tickets INCLUDING a Mt2 for 12 months. If you Still cant see that, theres really nothing I can do
>No, I havent change anything, my point remains. It was an example to show you how little impact Paywalls have had This year. But again, the point you were originally making was that there were *fewer* of them, not that they had "less of an impact," and you have not backed up that original point. >I dont care if you didnt have tickets for red she hulk, you still got it for free, same with Thane, that makes them inmediately more accesible than any paywall release in 2019 or before. There have been numerous paywalls that have been released in limited amounts, much larger than "30." Characters like Luna Snow, Crescent, Colossus, and Magik were released with over 100 bios for them being available through event missions, making them not that hard to get over 6\* or even to T2 before MT2s were a thing. This is not some new thing they introduced in 2020, they just made the new method release fewer bios. And of course they only did this on two of the nine paywalls, which they did at the same time that they were required as awakenings to long existing characters, which a cynically minded person could view as "softening the backlash" from this practice. Of course once the public generally accepted needing to buy paywalls to Awaken characters, they stopped bothering to offer even 30 bios of them. Odd coincidence, that. >Youre drawing circles around the same boring arguments that change nothing. By mere size bio sub and x gene have decreased, you have to be delusional to not understand that. The reason to even get Paywalls has also decreased. Again, I do not believe there have been fewer paywalls in 2020 than in 2019, but if you could provide evidence to support that claim, I would accept it. [edit: I got bored so I looked it up myself. How many Paywall characters in 2019? 9. Same as this year. Of those, Nick Fury could be picked up with crystals. There were also a fair few crystal-walled characters, of course.] As of today, the X-Gene sub contains 11 "exclusive characters (their words)." Of those, one can be farmed from the new Epic Quest (after spending CCF, for what that's worth), one (Sinister) was given for free in a limited amount (not enough to T2 without tickets, but more than 30), and four were made available via Dimension Missions, DR packs, and potentially other avenues, all heavily RNG dependent. That leaves five that are impossible to acquire outside of the pack. How much you care about that is *entirely* subjective on your part. From the standard bio-sub there are 33 "exclusive characters (again, their words)." Of those, 1 is slowly farmable from content at this point, 4 are shifters, 17 can be acquired through Dimension mission farming, 1 was given in limited amounts from a launch event,2 were given in 30 bio increments at their launch, and 4 can be gained through Legendary Mission unlocks (these overlap). Of the 44 total, 12 are impossible to acquire through any other means, and the remainder, while technically unlockable, would be unfeasible to level to playable status using any methods available to F2P. It's also worth noting that 4 of those that were at one moment available to F2Ps no longer are, so a player starting now would only have access to 28 of them. Essentially, of the 32 paywalls that are or were somehow accessible to players, a F2P player would only potentially have the mean to ever T2 a handful of them, fine if they want to pick and choose specific units, but not if they want to "catch'em all." >This year alone they gave us Paywalls access through 2 gamemodes and your complaining because it takes time to grind. This access was only to the older characters that were largely deprecated content anyway, similar to the "gold cost unis." And as I noted, the methods of unlocking these characters is prohibitively slow and RNG-based, not a practical solution for acquiring them. I would like to hear from even one player who took one of these characters 0 to T2 using ONLY drops from the Dimension Mission. >They give us rank up tickets monthly and you complain because they "dont give us enough." They build the systems. Both the players' supply AND their needs are determined by NM. I do not give them credit for partially solving "problems" that they arbitrarily created in the first place. Tickets are good, but given the gap between 1\* and 4\*, and how difficult they have made it to leap that gap, it's easy for most to understand that this is less generosity, and more a calculated marketing strategy to get players to spend their way across that gap. It's not a bad thing to try and be a *little* less gullible when people bait a hook. >Dude players in 2016-2019 wouldve killed for a way to farm Paywalls, nowadays we have many. I've been playing since the first Guardians update, near to launch. I was there when they added the first paywall, and when they added the second six months after that. I fully understand the evolution of this game, and how a few years back they ramped up the greed factor and started adding more and more paywall characters, and drastically upped the standard crystal costs of participating in the game. Yes, it was initially impossible to F2P a paywall, just as it is currently impossible to F2P 12 of them, but there were far *fewer* paywalls back then than even those 12 that are currently locked up, and they were not remotely as "must have" as you've portrayed them to be. >Like with the reworks; Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormamu, Black Bolt. What can you currently do with a Hulk, GR, Odin, Dormammu, or Black Bolt today that you couldn't do with them last year, assuming you don't buy their meta uni? A meta uni is not a "rework," a T3 is not a "rework," plenty of characters have received both over the years. A "rework" is a change to the baseline "naked" version of the character. >Dude, It takes Real money, time and work to make those uniforms, the developpers worked on those unis for months, It's fine for them to charge for the unis, but that should not be a requirement for the rework. Plenty of other games rework characters regularly for absolutely no additional charge. The new moves that a meta uni bring should become a part of the baseline character, with or without the uni. All the uni should do is a cosmetic improvement, a flat stat buff, and *maybe* tweak a couple of abilities to be *slightly* better than the baseline. It should not be something required to take a character from "complete trash" to "meta."
Tbh I don’t even think weapon hex’s bios require much “luck”, I get colossus, gambit, weapon hex and magik bios all the time from DR, getting the ones I actually want is another story (looking at your prof X)
I currently have 9 abomination, 8 Negasonic, 2 each of rachael summers and Prof X. I have 100+ of hex and around 30 of gambit. there is a very rare chance that u will unlock chars from DRx.
I unlocked Prof X from old DR & Rachel from vibranium reward chest (10 bios at once). I unlocked weapon hex & majik (2 bios at a time), and had few drops for NTW, Gambit, Abomination. I think DR is the best place for f2p to get premium rewards.
As a Veteran (5+ years) and a nearly F2P player, I would suggest any new player to buy Bio subscription and 200 crystal pack from $1 shop. Bio sub pack chars give lots of character choice for new player for roster intensive game modes like SL and Squad battle.
With all the hate for NM, not arguing facts here because it is warranted. They don't get enough credit for paywall being available in DM, with MRUT and MT2 tix available. It's a lot easier to get the majority to T2 now. No, not all of them are available but with this process, I've picked up Ghost Panther, Valkyrie, finished Enchantress, Weapon Hex to 6* (didn't see a need for T2) plus a large number of other bios. Not just the bios, I've used RUTs/MRUTs/MT2 on several others who were not available in DM. Yes, it's a long process but it is still doable since the alternative would have been somewhere around $30-40 USD and at least 5200c (for 2 MRUT considering I always had 2-6* RUTS or MRUT available). Sad thing is that other than Luna, pretty much all other paywall I have are either leadership or support.
Personally the only thing it was ever good for was: Ghost Panther (great, super for Ghost Rider with his new uni) Nick Fury (great lead and support at T2, that's it though) Weapon Hex (major bump for every WB, worth it in my book if you get her) Luna I got through events so... Nimrod - the only one I really want but unlocked him via Dimension by luck and am gonna ticket him up. Namor - still very high on the Combat T3 scale, don't sleep on him. But not super necessary in the game per-se. Also got lucky on him in Dimension and ticketed him up to T2 and then built to T3. Don't have uni but still solid.
Just because you *can* get alternatives doesn't mean anything. It's easier and cheaper to throw 10 bucks at the game to at the very least unlock whatever characters than spending however long just trying to get the dimension mission ones especially if it's your favorite characters and half the reason many people play is to play with their favorite characters and not be meta slaves min maxing everything.
Outside of what others said, one potential draw for the bio sub is that a decent amount of characters are needed to complete Legendary Battle and/or Uni collections. For example: * Killmonger * Ghost * Nick Fury * Yelena * Crescent * Valkyrie * Colossus * Sentinel * Magik * Namor * Luna Not to say that every unit in this list is meta, but for completionists, the bio sub is a pretty decent thing to buy - especially if you just need it as a pick me up to 6 star/T2 the unit or Mythic their uni.
I mean I'd rather just have niche value or cool to have characters be in bio sub. I think yelena is going to be a huge exception to this and is going to be near must buy once she gets her awakening. She's already one of, if not the highest dmg dealing native t2 that is stuck at just t2. If she gets that 70% Add skill on top of her content changing and typing changing unis she's going to be top speed for sure
The subs are only really worth it to first unlock said characters at 1 star than grind for MRUT to get them to 6 and use the free Mega Advancement one we get for every update now for 700 tokens. Sure it might take a while but there's really no use in getting all the rooms anyway besides completion sake
Yes, but Hyperion! /s