Marvel Heroes - Catch All

Free random costume and random hero box for logging in this weekend.

Logged in today to a free hero token and costume token.

Not sure how long this is going on but you might want to login if you haven't.

EDIT: Beaten to the punch.

And got Iceman...which is ok, because now he is at 19 for his level 52 power. For costume i got classic thor. isn't that the one he comes with? I have his destroyer costume, so just using that.

I got Nova, who I did not already have. Score!

I just started playing this Friday and so far I am enjoying it. Do you guys group up at all?

Eastwardflea wrote:

I just started playing this Friday and so far I am enjoying it. Do you guys group up at all?

There is a GWJ supergroup.

And we used to even do raids together. But people come and go with the game being free, so there's not always a ton of people on at the same time lately.

Wow, huge patch. Finally they have dynamic level scaling so content levels up to you and you always get XP. So now you can play with your new low level friends or friends on an alt in any story or other mode (midtown, x-def, etc.).

Pretty huge change and a long time coming.

Also a blessings revamp, Avengers tower redesign, etc.

Patch notes

Stele wrote:

Wow, huge patch. Finally they have dynamic level scaling so content levels up to you and you always get XP. So now you can play with your new low level friends or friends on an alt in any story or other mode (midtown, x-def, etc.).

Pretty huge change and a long time coming.

Also a blessings revamp, Avengers tower redesign, etc.

Patch notes

The dynamic scaling is a great addition. I've got quite a few characters that I skipped the story with and primarily leveled them through the challenge areas (midtown & industry city), so I've started taking them through the story since they can get loot & XP from it now.
The blessing rework is nice so far, but I hope they add more blessings sooner rather than later. Particularly I'd like more variety in the Utility types, and some alternatives to the Odin blessing. There are some characters where having to pick an offensive, a defensive, and a utility blessing to get the bonus from the Odin blessing seems like a waste. For example: a blessing that gives a bonus to a single attribute depending on kind (+Fighting for offensive blessings, +Durability for defensive blessings, +Intelligence and/or +Speed for utility blessings) and number (+1 for two of the same kind, +2 for three)

Yeah might actually go back and get some of the other mission bonuses besides power points now.

I've played the game for two years but had never finished the story because my leveling would always outpace the content due to the various bonuses and potions. With the dynamic scaling I'm finally revisiting the story content and thoroughly enjoying it. It beats running Midtown Madness over and over.

Anyone still playing this at all anymore? I've been playing with a variety to hit level 10 and see what I like. It's an entertaining game so far.

I still play most nights. Depending on the event going on I may just log in for the daily reward, but usually I spend an hour or so playing when I get the chance.

I login for daily stuff and keep up with the news. But I haven't played much since the June anniversary stuff

I think I added Stengah and Stele. At least, I added those two characters in game. Hopefully, that was you two.

Indeed. But it's a one-way friend thing. So we have to add you back to see you.

Invisible Woman, Squirrel Girl, Storm, and Scarlet Witch all seem pretty fun. Any annoying things about any of those characters?

Invisible Woman's very fun to play, but she does have a fairly low DPS output compared to the rest of the characters. Her forcefields and invisibility give her incredible survivability though. A bunch of her lines annoy some people, but I think they fit her character fine. In particular she has a lot of mom-power! lines, but like I said, they fit her character and the people that complain generally have a regressive notion of how women should act in video games anyways.
Squirrel Girl's been a victim of power creep, as most of the summoner characters added after her have their powers much better designed than hers are. A lot of people complain about her voice (it's very perky), but I think it's great and very fitting (my favorite in-game line is still the tail-buddies one she says to Nightcrawler).
Storm's a victim of power creep as well, but still pretty solid.
Scarlet Witch is great. Storm and SW fit the same niche (AoE destruction), but SW does it better.
Not on your list, but getting Cyclops to at least level 50 is pretty important for new players, as his synergy bonus at 50 is +10% XP.

Overall though, there's really no bad character to play (maybe Doctor Strange, just because he requires a lot of hotbar switching and doesn't have a easy flow like most other characters do). Any complaints you hear in the social chat should be chalked up to someone thinking that because a character isn't the best, they're not worth playing at all. Unless you plan on doing a lot of raiding, just pick the characters you like and ignore the meta conversation.

Haven't played in a couple weeks due to my pc being dismantled till I get my drain tile/sump pump system installed.

Stengah wrote:

Useful Information.

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up with Deadpool for my free one as I have a hard time not getting "the best deal" for a free character and had to get a 600 pointer.

I got Storm as well because she was cheap and I enjoyed her lightning aura. It was a little different when I made it out of Chapter 1, but once I got used to her other abilities, still fun.

I was surprised you said Invisible Woman was low for damage as I found a TTK post and she was third on the list. The longer TTK, not the ones that are around 30 seconds.

I wanted to like Rogue, but she just felt strange to me. Not sure what I was missing, but something just felt off.

Anyway, enjoying the game. It's a nice, lighthearted game that is just kind of fun to blow stuff up.

It's entirely possible that IW's got a new build out there that improves her TTK, but my experience with her was that she didn't do damage as quickly as many other heroes. She's got great defense, and an awesome built-in spirit management system, so she can just stand there and take what most bosses throw at her, whereas other characters require constant movement to not get smooshed or are more bursty in their damage output, so that might account for a faster long-term TTK. For example, I had a bit of a time getting her past the cosmic trial not because she'd get defeated (she never came close), but because she couldn't take down the bosses within the time limit.

I just got Rogue to 60, and I think her big problem is choice paralysis. She takes a bit of planning if you want to make good use of her stolen powers. Some of them are worthless on their own, but synergize well with others, and you can't just immediately start using a power when it unlocks, you have to seek out the power you want and steal it first. It's way less complicated to use a character that has a defined power set than one that can be changed to fit pretty much every playstyle. I went with a summoner build for her, and she's pretty formidable, but I don't really see myself going back to her.

So it appears the major game systems of Marvel Heroes are in for some major changes based on this developer post.

I'm excited about the changes and I'm all for simplifying the process of ranking up your powers as it is a bit tedious to have to manually allocate points at every level up.

erichoya wrote:

So it appears the major game systems of Marvel Heroes are in for some major changes based on this developer post.

I'm excited about the changes and I'm all for simplifying the process of ranking up your powers as it is a bit tedious to have to manually allocate points at every level up.

Depending on how this goes, I may just have to start playing again. Wow.

Movement Powers (such as Dashes and Teleports) will now immediately free you of crowd control effects, so there is no more need for a dedicated active slot for Cleanse effects.

A very welcome change.

Rybowl wrote:

Anyone still playing this at all anymore? I've been playing with a variety to hit level 10 and see what I like. It's an entertaining game so far.

I've tried returning to the game a few times, and each time the overflowing inventory pile of confusing crap combined with the mixture of currencies and not knowing how to progress a level 30ish character after beating the story... yeah, it's a rather intimidating and opaque game to try to pick back up.

They've massively revamped the story and most content is no longer level dependent. Instead of having the story split between normal (1-30), heroic (30-45), and super heroic (45-60) difficulties, it's all one dynamic difficulty. It plays much more like GW2 with regards to leveling now, in that high level characters get downgraded a bit (still overpowered for the area) but now get xp and loot scaled up to their current level from enemies. The only level-gated content are the raids, cosmic terminals, and cosmic versions of the patrol areas. Brand new players can go from 1 to ~55 from the story alone, and you can easily hit 60 well before reaching the end of the story if you have even moderately okay bonuses to xp.
The currency and inventory problems are still there, but they're not any more onerous than any another MMO out there.

So if you beat the story back when it capped out around 30, do you just hop back into previous areas and go beat stuff up aimlessly, or is there some Marvel Heroes version of Diablo 3's Adventure Mode?

Are there any areas (other than raids) that are accessible outside of the story (as in, areas that you won't go during the story but can go to after having beaten it)?

I need to look up that cosmic stuff to see what that is. Won't pester you about it.

Short version is that I'd like to play the game more/again, just need to get over the knowledge hump of returning with so much new or changed about it in the last couple years!

If you beat the story, you've beaten the story, but you can always prestige your character and start the story over again, or pick a different character and take them through it.

There's a bunch of non-story content too:

  • Terminals & One Shots: Green and Red Terminals are unlocked when you first get to whatever part of the story they're set in (i.e. the MODOK/AIM terminal is unlocked once you get to the AIM base in the story). At level 60, the Cosmic difficulty version of the all the terminals are available.
    There are 3 One-Shot terminals, which are essentially just single-difficulty terminals, but with self-contained stories. One is fighting against Man-Ape in Wakanda, one is fighting Lizard and Mr Hyde at the Bronx Zoo, and one is fighting Madam Hydra and the Red Skull at a Hydra base.
  • Challenges:
    Patrol zones: Midtown patrol is unlocked from the start, Industry City Patrol is unlocked when you first get a character to level 12 (I think) and Hightown Patrol is unlocked when you first get a character to Chapter 10 of the story, which was added earlier this year. The cosmic version of them is unlocked when you successfully beat the Cosmic Trial, which is a timed fight against Madam Hydra and Red Skull. Each character has to beat the Trial to get access to the cosmic patrol zones.
    There's the Age of Ultron Challenge which is a timed battle set in Central Park against Ultron and his drones (unlocks at level 60).
    X-Defense is defending the Xavier Mansion against waves of enemies, and SHIELD Holo-sim is a "training" room where you fight waves of enemies. Both of them are in desperate need of a revamp though. Holo-sim is available from level 1, and X-Defense unlocks at level 20.
    Raids: there are two different raids, each with two difficulties. I've never done either.
  • Danger Room: At level 60 you can talk to Beast (I think) in the X-Mansion to get taken to the Danger Room, which can thereafter be accessed from the teleporter under the Hubs section. You can run scenarios (which can drop from enemies or be made through a special crafter) of varying difficulty to get (yet another) currency to trade in for (even more) items.

Generally, I'll take a character from 1 to 60 through the story, then go to the various patrol zones to farm for decent items (Hightown is the best place to farm uniques). Once I'm kitted out well enough to get past the Cosmic Trial, I'll farm some more until I have good rolls on the character specific uniques, then start over with someone new, or switch to one of my favorite characters and either do non-specific farming or work on achievements.

Edit- Chronologically, the story goes:
Chapters 1-9 of the story missions > Muspelheim Raid > ? (I haven't played the Muspelheim raid so I don't know if it has an ending cutscene that leads into anything) > Age of Ultron Challenge > Chapter 10 of story missions.

Farscry wrote:

Short version is that I'd like to play the game more/again, just need to get over the knowledge hump of returning with so much new or changed about it in the last couple years!

One thing I like about the game is that outside of raids, no one really cares how well you "know" the game. This is a great place to find builds for every hero, and a lot of them have decent explanations of why they picked what they did, alternative items that can be used, and how to "play" it. Plus someone almost always puts together a levelling/beginner build that doesn't require super rare items to be effective. There's also the massive revamp coming soon, so you'll be pretty much as knowledgeable as everyone else once that hits.

Awesome posts Stengah, thank you for the info!

I didn't actually know there was a raid part as it pretty much funneled me directly into the chapter 10 stuff. Not sure I know what the Age of Ultron Challenge is either.

And if you just want some leveling builds, here is an idea for most characters.

Also, I have a ton of those danger room tokens, should I save them all or just vendor some of them? Do they give valuable drops and such or better off running Hightown?