Let's talk about roster slots

i'd like to see a relatively low expansion cap, say around 200 HP

Would have chosen 500, because it's the lowest, but I honestly think it should be lower. 400, perhaps. Given the rate at which they're pumping out new characters, even 500 seems a bit too much.

Either way, they really need to do something about it, given the number of new characters coming along.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I'm one of the people that benefited from starting early, and I could reason that cheap roster slots would take away vets' advantage before newer players since lesser rosters often lack required characters for PvE. If you have nothing advantageous going for you down the road, why bother building a good roster, yadda yadda.
Then again, newer players do need to be able to appreciate everything the game has to offer. I am no hardcore completionist, I sell Yelena, Bag-Man and Iron Man 35 whenever I need a slot for someone new, but selling covers you would otherwise keep hurts all the same. Maybe Demiurge could employ some sort of a sliding scale based on days played, and provide free slots for all players so that any player could afford to keep core characters, at least.
Maybe like this:
Days 0 - 10: 7 free slots (for 3-4 1*s and 3-4 2*s).
Days 11 - 30: 15 free slots (2-3 1*s, 9-10 2*s, a couple 3*s).
Days 31 - 60: 25 free slots.
Days 61 - 100: 35 free slots.
After that, no more freebies. Include free roster slots as daily drops and winnable prizes, though.
Anything more than that before the allotted timeframe, you have to buy yourself. Those that want to progress faster, to catch 'em all, are still free to spend HP on roster slots, get doubles, get every character, etc, those that just want to keep playing comfortably, can afford to do so without having to make painful decisions every week.
Since Demiurge still need to make money and roster slots seem to be one of the best venues, but the high prices feel very punishing for all players, vets and newbies alike, I propose to maybe always have special roster slots on sale. When buying those, you have a good chance at getting a 3* - 4* cover that you completely lack or only have 1-2 of. If not getting a cover, at least get a guaranteed ISO prize as consolation.
Maybe it could even be a cover that is currently out of rotation! (Hint hint requiring Punisher after him being rotated out for several seasons in a row and not giving newbies a single chance to earn him, what gives, Demi? That's almost unlike you. I know that the Hulk event revolves around him.)
Maybe sell slots that would allow us to bundle characters together and be able to use one healthpack to revive all of them (for example, buy a special 1500 HP slot which can house up to 3 characters, you put Fury, Hood and Loki there, voila, your squishy support characters can now be revived with one single healthpack). (For 2*s: oBW, cStorm and MMN.) Rotate the characters there as often as once a week, maybe.
Sell special slots that can house however many doubles of a character for one price. Example: pay 1000 HP and house all 5 copies of oBW that you can't part with there! (She rules in PvE and Combined Arms/Balance of Power events. Oh and her purple Team-Up also rocks.)
Sell special warehouse slots that allow us to keep random covers that we aren't sure what to do with, for an unlimited amount of time. E.g. pay 1000 HP, you can keep up to 5 covers for different 3* and 4* characters there for an unlimited period of time while you decide what you want to do with them.
I don't know, go crazy, Demi, but just know that not allowing to know your lovingly crafted game from the very beginning feels punishing and unsatisfying, since it's characters and their skills that make this game.

Elsewhere, a few characters back I used the wiki (assuming it was updated) to calculate the total costs. I'll start putting it out there again on these threads, as it will scare off newbies and perhaps shame D3 into finally changing this.

You had to have a Stark's Salary worth of HP to unlock enough roster spots to have one of each character.

CoolB76 wrote:

thanos8587 wrote:

CoolB76 wrote:

Seriously, why do you guys need 1 of each character? Seems a bit Narcissistic considering most boosted 1 and 2 star cards still aren't as strong as a maxed 3/4*. It's few and far between when the special character for a node is a 2*.

you say that as if getting maxed 3/4*s is a two week long endeavor. you need your two stars while you accumulate gold covers and to not delete rare covers you have to keep opening roster slots because there are more and more rares coming out. the fact that essential nodes are always rare characters is why you cant just scrap them. thats the problem. this combined with the vaulting process just overfills you with rare characters that are undercovered and useless other than for pve essentials because you cant accumulate enough covers in a small number of characters so that theyre more powerful than the fully covered 2*s.

If you have got one of every character you probably are well beyond the point of actually needing those 1 and 2 stars to help with the 3* transition.

*edit* I guess it's also too late at this point and might as well keep them.

Not true. To be honest, I have 2/3 of the characters at this point (41 roster slots in total, no duplicates), and have about 5-6 3* over the 100th level (no one maxed, but 2 sitting at 140). Despite having all those other 3*s, I am unable to use them, meaning that I need to use my 2*s in almost every match, save for a few at the end of the PVP...

There was another poll on how many unusable characters (Under 3 covers) people have, and I think I topped that poll with something like 18 of the 39 I had at the time... The truth is, character collection does not mean character viability in a match.

Also, if you are like me, and desperately need the 3* covers, you NEED to have at least one 1* (preferably juggs or im35) for those BOP and CA events, because the higher tier players avoid these, I actualyl get a chance to win some 3* covers when they do occur...

FOR THE POLL: While I voted with the 500HP being max (and understand if this really needs to occur), I would ideally cap this a bit lower (maybe 200-300). The reason I voted 500, is to give further weight to the idea that this really does need to change. Hoping the developers will see the overwhelming majority voting for one option (rather than general disagreement), and realize that change is really needed.