Comic Covers Collection Thread - Information, Opinion, Suggestions...

TL;DR:

• There are two types of Rifts for covers, I call them types 1,2 and 1,4, they differ by rewards and piece probabilities

• Don't fuse more than two pieces (until you get deeper into what "fusion values" are, see links below), you still only get one back if you use more

• List of all non-premium covers with boosts and rewards

• What to expect: 3 of the covers are fairly manageable to complete, the other standard covers are generally possible to complete, but will probably take a long time and you will never ever gonna complete a premium cover unless you spend crystals on Cover Piece chests (at current probability rates 1.4.1/2)

EDIT 9/24: Added some new information and a strategy/recommendation section; work in progress

Information:

• each cover consists of 9 pieces, collecting all 9 of one cover will give you item/biometric rewards and let you activate certain stat boosts, but you can't use more than one boost at a time

• non-premium cover pieces can be found in Dimension Rifts, premium pieces in chests or through fusion

• each non-premium cover belongs to one rift and can only be found in this particular rift (or through fusion)

• So far, there are 2 types, differing by the order in which the pieces 1-9 are appearing within the stages of each rift, it's either

• Stage | Type 1-4 | Type 1-2 ---------|----------|---------- Stage 1 | 1, 4 | 1, 2 Stage 2 | 1, 7 | 3, 4 Stage 3 | 1, 6, 8 | 5, 6 Stage 4 | 2, 4, 9 | 7, 8 Stage 5 | 3, 5, 7 | 2, 9

• So, if you want to collect all pieces of a Type 1-2 cover from rift drops only (alternative is to get some from fusing), you will need to play all stages of that particular rift to get all pieces from 1-9. The drop rates in rifts are 80% for even numbers 2,4,6,8 and 20% for odd numbers 1,3,5,7,9.
  The three covers of Type 1-2 (the ones that reward gold) are fairly manageable to complete, at least for everybody that can finish Stage 5 in the respective rifts.

• Type 1-4 is a different animal. Here, pieces 1,4,7 (left row of a cover) are the ones that are easy to obtain. The probability to drop for one of these is 80% in the respective stages 3-5. The probability of pieces 2,5,8 (middle row of a cover) is close to 20%, but the probabilities to drop for pieces 3,6,9 (right row of a cover) is close to 0% (0.05% for 6,9 and 0.01% for piece 3). This means that you will have a very hard time getting these to drop from the rifts at all!
  Overview for Type 1-4 (quoting u/Mwinci ):

For 1 - 4 pattern rifts [only taking into account stage 3 and above]:
Piece 1, 4, 7 : 80% drop rate
Piece 5 : 19.99% drop rate
Piece 2, 8 : 19.95% drop rate
Piece 6, 9 : 0.05% drop rate
Piece 3 : 0.01% drop rate (this is basically 1 out of 10,000)

• credit to u/scorpio0920 and others who found out the probabilities from data mining Link

• You get at least one cover piece from the boss for each stage run, but enemy mobs (crates unconfirmed?) can drop more than one along the way (percentage to drop from a mob is about 1.5%, which cover it will be has the same probabilities as the boss/stage drops seen above - credit to u/precursor_ - Link )

• Cover | Rift | Type | Reward | Boost ---------|----------|----------|----------|---------- Punisher | Black Pant. | 1-4 | 10x Punisher Bio | +5% Def. Pen. Cap. Marvel | Blade | 1-4 | 10x Cap. Mar. Bio | +5% Crit. Rate 1872 | Cap. Am. | 1-4 | 10x Bullseye Bio | +5% Att. Spd. Loki | Destroyer | 1-4 | 10x Loki Bio | +5% All Att. 1602 Angela | Hawkeye | 1-4 | 10x Angela Bio | +5% Crit. Dam. MODOK | Loki | 1-4 | 10x MODOK Bio | -5% Crowd Ctrl. Battleworld | Spider-Man | 1-4 | 50x Level 5 EXP Chip | +5% HP Black Widow | Thor | 1-4 | 10x Bl. Widow Bio | +5% All Def. Armor Wars | Ghost Rider | 1-2 | 100k Gold | +5% Mov. Spd. SW 2099 | Iron Fist | 1-2 | 100k Gold | +5% Rec. Rate Marvel Zombies | Vision | 1-2 | 100k Gold | +5% Dodge

• (Thanks to u/Ozeagle and u/dearbluey for helping me complete the list)

Fusion

• you can combine any two pieces to receive one piece back (probabilities to follow below)

• a premium cover piece as a result is very unlikely

• you can select more than two to fuse (auto-pick function does this as well), but you will still only get back ONE piece!

• There is a complex system behind the probabilities of the results, which I might try to summarize later. For now, refer to the following posts:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/FutureFight/comments/3jbyxk/the_math_behind_fusing_or_why_not_a_single_person/
  Start here, u/MarkMoreland basically found out about this whole thing and gives and in-depth explanation

• https://www.reddit.com/r/FutureFight/comments/3j5vh7/mff_141_cover_datamining/cunxsbd
  Good summary of all values and probabilities

• https://www.reddit.com/r/FutureFight/comments/3m34uv/help_with_fusing_values/cvbnzzg
  Nice graphical overview of the different probabilities

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14A4d5pD_RTZ7VMm5NfpkuY3eN4iGMa1JSuW9wWc1DDo/edit#gid=937291626
  Once you understood the system, these charts might be helpful to you

Recommendation/My own strategy

• for people who will not spend any crystals on Cover chests for now

• 1.) Finish the three 1-2/Gold reward covers first by...

• a) ... playing all the respective rift stages until I have all the pieces

• b) ... in the meantime, start fusing 2 pieces at a time of all duplicate FV 1 pieces (pieces 1 and 7 of the Gold reward covers might be quicker to obtain from here than from playing the rifts). Don't waste any FV 2 or 4 pieces for a 2-piece fusion!

• 2.) After completing the 1-2 covers, only play stage 1 of the 1-2 rifts from now on!
  For type 1-4 rifts, I will personally still play all the stages until I have the respective pieces 1,4,7 and 2,5,8, other options are to ...

• a) ... play only stage 1 and hope for the fusion long run by combining as many FV 1 pieces as possible to get FV 2 and 4 pieces from there

• b) ... play only stage 3 with realistic hope for the FV 2 piece and dreamy hope for the FV 4 piece from there

• 3.) Combine duplicates of 9x FV 2 piece + 1x FV 4 piece which will get me into the FV 21-80 pool and gives me a good chance to obtain missing 3,6,9 pieces or even a premium piece 1,4,7

• 4.) No matter how well steps 2 and 3 work, this will never get me into the FV 81 and above pools unless I get some 2,5,7 or 3,6,9 premium pieces from Cover chests, that's why I won't bother with premium covers for now and use any 1,4,7 premium pieces from step 3 to reach the FV 21 pool again and hope for missing standard 3,6,9 pieces

General Opinion:

While the fact that the stat boosts don't stack and the general ratio of effort/reward does not seem particularly high for the covers, my sense of "Gotta catch 'em all" alone still has me quite hooked on this.

Also -regardless of its current execution- since this is a Marvel game, I think collecting actual comic covers is a perfectly fitting mechanism in general for a game like this.

Suggestions:

• Premium pieces and the rarer pieces of 1-4 type rifts should be a lot more likely to obtain from both drops and fusion. It's okay to me if it takes me a long time, but I want to know I will eventually get there without spending crystals if I just play long enough.

• Pieces could also be rewarded on rare random occasions from all other game modes!

• Maybe allow stacking of boosts, one could in turn decrease each single one if necessary

• More/better rewards for collecting each set, maybe a massive reward for collecting all, all premium or all non-premium sets

• The idea of collecting the comic covers could also be extended to movie posters, wouldn't that be cool as well? (might be an issue with the actors etc. though?)

• In general, I would like to see the system expanded, regularly adding new covers, making them a part of all game modes etc..., but the incentive to really collect all or even one of the covers should be increased by better rewards and by not making it close to impossible to eventually get the premium covers without spending crystals (same thought applies to the whole game, I guess!).