The New Character ISO paradox

Unknown

They release new chars so fast and ISO is really hard to get, how it is good for diversify? 183th day here and I just debating if I should use all of my ISO on L-Thor or BP... Sure, if I would not use resources on others, I could lvl up both, but without others I could not earn these covers...

wymtime

This game goes in cycles.
#1 you start out cover poor, ISO poor, and HP poor. You are in 1* land.
#2 You get into 2* land and you are HP poor. HP is for roster slots only as you do not score well enough in PVP to shield and have it really make a difference. You are also ISO poor becuase you need to level as many 2* as possible.
#3 you are ready to start the 3* transition. You are HP poor becuase you need roster slots, but you become ISO rich becuase you can't place well in PVP. All your characters are level maxed, but you can only earn 1-2 covers at a time. You are 3* cover poor as you can't win them.
#4 you are in 3* land you have enough 3* covers to max cover some characters, you have burned through all your ISO and you can now start competing in PVP for top 25. In today's game you still might be HP poor becuase you have had to open up so many roster slots, but you probably have over 1k HP to spend on shields as you can now compete for top 25 most of the time.
#5 Solidly in 3* land. You are HP rich 2-3k, have lots of 3* covers and very ISO poor. You can grind in PVE if you want, you can place in PVP with shields, or just go up to 800 and use a 3 hr shield, but ISO is goes out the door quickly. You are looking to develope your roster.. If you grind LR, PVP, PVE you can slowly bring along your roster. You win covers regularly, but only pu some levels into them when they are buffed.
I do think they should increase the amount of ISO that is dropped. I know some people who really grind the game have said they can generate 100k ISO in a week I would assume the average player would gain about 30-40k. If you increased this by 50% it would take the average player 2 weeks to get 120k iso which is enough to really bring along a 3* character. Top players will always be ahead in the ISO game becuase they are already able to place higher, and win more events already. An increase in ISO would help 3* players get more 3* rather than the transition player.

Unknown

Between cycles 1 and 5, 6 months have passed and 15-20 characters have been released...

#6 you quit the game because you are tired of grinding day and night for a game which developers constantly slap you in the face.

PuceMoose

atomzed wrote:

homeinvasion wrote:

Please get rid of the 20 iso reward. It's so demoralizing when you win that really hard game and come up with 20 iso.

Huh? It doesn't make sense to ask them to drop the iso reward. Though it's menial, the amount adds up. I rather have some iso per game than have no iso per game.

I think a nice touch would be to make the reward double each time you fail to score a remaining available node award. 20 , then 40 if you whiff again, then 80 if the RNG laughs at you a third consecutive time, etc. The sting of missing that final award for five consecutive tries would certainly be remedied by 320 ISO!

Unknown

20 Iso for a match with lvl 300+ characters is a tad ridic.

scottee

arktos1971 wrote:

You could not be more wrong.

If you haven't maxed Xforce and Lcap yet and think that you're done, it's time for you to rethink about your strategy...

Because the extra 1000 health is do much awesome? Because not having max damage on red makes him less of a monster countdown killer in pve?

Having a stable of a dozen 166+ 3/4*'s is all you ever need in this game. I maintain, this is the end game. I can win any covers i want until they add dungeons rise who competed at the top levels. After that, the only thing to do is jump in the revolving door of winning events so you can get covers for characters who are not needed to compete at the top. The last new character who was required to compete top tier was who? LDaken? Sentry?

Don't get me wrong, I still have plenty of fun in this game. The fun is just not in maxing characters anymore. For me, it's in the puzzle game, which is where it's always been for me.

Unknown

scottee wrote:

Because the extra 1000 health is do much awesome? Because not having max damage on red makes him less of a monster countdown killer in pve?

Having a stable of a dozen 166+ 3/4*'s is all you ever need in this game. I maintain, this is the end game. I can win any covers i want until they add dungeons rise who competed at the top levels. After that, the only thing to do is jump in the revolving door of winning events so you can get covers for characters who are not needed to compete at the top. The last new character who was required to compete top tier was who? LDaken? Sentry?

Don't get me wrong, I still have plenty of fun in this game. The fun is just not in maxing characters anymore. For me, it's in the puzzle game, which is where it's always been for me.

There are quite many synergies between other characters in the game.

Maxing all characters is probably not the biggest fun anymore, but there are many good characters (Psylocke, Falcon, Torch, Fury...) that can be helpful in PvEs and/or PvP when it comes to going from 0 to 600-800.

I'd be really bored if I was to play only half a dozen characters.

But we ARE (edit) getting an overdose with so many released characters, most of which are ****.

atomzed

arktos1971 wrote:

But we ARE (edit) getting an overdose with so many released characters, most of which are ****.

Hmm, I thought it was a good mix.

Let's look at the recent characters:
Garbage: Beast, Doc Oct
Not bad: Colossus, Devil Dino
Great: Mystique, 4thor

Of course this is my personal opinion. Mystique will not be God tier, like Xforce, but she has a good purple, and she can accelerate black and purple. Will make for a good Xforce partner. 4thor, I think all are looking forward towards her.

Unknown

I finished maxing her this morning, so I need to test her now.

I am more impressed by Daken/Blade. They could kill lvl 230 enemies in Simulator Hard.

She could be powerful if she could indeed use the abilities she stole. For the time being, I can't see how she can be useful and who I can pair her with.

atomzed

arktos1971 wrote:

I finished maxing her this morning, so I need to test her now.

I am more impressed by Daken/Blade. They could kill lvl 230 enemies in Simulator Hard.

She could be powerful if she could indeed use the abilities she stole. For the time being, I can't see how she can be useful and who I can pair her with.

Oh yeah, I forgot about blade. Blade is good too. I will put him in the "not bad" category.

Mystique would be a good fit with Xforce-cmag team. Rainbow team, and you have a good nuke with cmag blue, red, Xforce green and black. And mystique will be covered by cmag blue, and Xforce black, and will only be exposed on purple match.

And even if Xforce dies, you still have an outlet for the black with her black ability.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Half of my fun is to decide which heroes to levelled based on my needs. 2 weeks ago I was sitting on 180k iso and could max levelled cmag, bp, dp, CM. I decided not to levelled any of them cos I wasn't really in need of a new max lvl 3.

During mystique pve, bp became an essential character. I was still hesitating between levelling BP, and just keeping the iso for cmag. I kept my bp at 130.

Towards the end, I decided that a max bp is essential.for a good placing, so I dump iso into bp to make him max. As I got 3 mystique cover I did feel that bp was worth it, even though he is not seeing much action now.

I personally feel that if you only look at the outcome (max roster, max character), you won't enjoy the game. The process is more important and much more fun than the destination.

But if their goal is roster diversity, it seems your personal story proves the flow iso is too low to meet that goal.

Unknown

Well, that's what I was talking about in the dedicated thread.

I understand some don't want to spend a dime on the game, but for others, I'm sure they would be enclined to spend some bucks if Iso was MUCH cheaper.

Then, progressing in the game would be a matter of time spent and skill/dedication because you need to spend time to get the first covers in PvEs, and skill to get the additional ones in PvPs.

As said numerous times, you can't spend money on everything :

- Health Packs/Boosts/Shields (like Candy Crush business model),
- Iso to level the characters,

Covers can be won through events unless you want to go faster and buy them.

Unknown

I don't think you're getting the point of the game. ISO is supposed to sort of "trickle," until you get to PVE's, where it's tossed about like candy. I mean, aren't you playing The Simulator? There are 1000 and 2000 ISO prizes there.

Anyways, the point is, use the characters you have to earn ISO to build the characters you want. So you're pumping ISO into Wolverine. A month from now, start pumping ISO into Blade. Or don't. Pump Thor. Do what you want to, do it everyone, do what you want to, let's have some fun, y'all.

You'll never get to a point where you have nobody left to pump, and you might as well pump IW. Won't happen. And that's the goal.

HailMary

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

And this is for a character I actually know I want to use. Mystique is another one where I'm not sure if I would use her (hey, a 3* analogue to OBW? I can dig it)... But even if I had max covers right now, the ISO simply isn't there, and it's unlikely to be there for months or years. Why should I level these characters? My LThor is at 150 and needs 40k. My C.Mags is at 135 and needs 72k. My torch is at 132 and needs 78k. My hulk is at 130 and needs 80k. My Xforce is at 132 and needs probably something like 120k, and that's not even the final level cap, that's just as far as my current cover set gets him. And that's ignoring my Daken (who still needs a few pink covers and as a result is sitting around 100), my BP (needs black, sitting at 100), my Captain Marvel (needs to be better, also at 100)...

...You get the point. I have all these characters who are sorta halfway there. When should I put ISO into Blade? Or Mystique? Or even Deadpool (hey, he's a high tier hero who happens to be sitting in my roster with max covers at 72 because I can't use people with less than 130 at this point and I don't have the ISO to get him there)?

You prioritize. You want to max out DP posthaste? Then focus on leveling him. 170K Iso isn't going to take you "months or years" to grind if you actually try to grind it.

In Mq's case, if you're "not sure if [you] would use her", then it's not a problem of "the ISO simply isn't there." You can easily get the Iso to level just Mq, but you'd rather not, because you'd rather level at least 5 other characters before her. That's fine, and that's your prerogative, but it doesn't actually mean you need "years" just to get Iso for Mq.

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

The rate at which covers are released and new heroes are brought on is so vastly disproportionate to the rate at which ISO is given out that there's simply no chance for transitioning players to use new characters. By the time I'm done leveling one character, 10 others have come out, and the rate of ISO is the same. Honestly, when another new one comes out, I'm just gonna see "is it better than one of the 3*s I have sitting at 40 in my roster because I can't rationally spend ISO on them", and dumping whichever one is the worst. Probably beast, and he has 12 covers and is still awful.

And yet, Colognoisseur still manages to get all the Iso he needs to level-max every new character he insta-buys covers for. Sure, he's an edge case, but he should be an edge case: a guy being able to instamax new characters right as they're pumped out solely using hardcore-farmed Iso, long before additional covers are "naturally" released.

We could all use more Iso. More Iso would be cool. But, why anyone has an expectation of "Well, just from semi-seriously grinding for Iso, I should get enough Iso without paying anything to soft-cap every single character in the game as soon as I get their covers" is beyond me.

Also, why are you "dumping whichever one is the worst"? Are you HP-starved and consequently roster-slot-starved? That's an issue, sure, but it's an issue unrelated to your main point here.

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

So what's the solution? Is it "buy ISO"? But the pricing is obviously such to discourage buying it with real money. What's the goal here? Should we not be leveling new heroes?

There's a big difference between leveling new heroes (which you and rest of us frequently do) and soft-capping every single hero as soon as it comes out just by moderately grinding Iso.

Unknown

Vertigozooropa wrote:

You'll never get to a point where you have nobody left to pump, and you might as well pump IW.

HailMary

Paintsville wrote:

Vertigozooropa wrote:

You'll never get to a point where you have nobody left to pump, and you might as well pump IW.

Phrasing.

Unknown

Vertigozooropa wrote:

I don't think you're getting the point of the game. ISO is supposed to sort of "trickle," until you get to PVE's, where it's tossed about like candy. I mean, aren't you playing The Simulator? There are 1000 and 2000 ISO prizes there.

Anyways, the point is, use the characters you have to earn ISO to build the characters you want. So you're pumping ISO into Wolverine. A month from now, start pumping ISO into Blade. Or don't. Pump Thor. Do what you want to, do it everyone, do what you want to, let's have some fun, y'all.

You'll never get to a point where you have nobody left to pump, and you might as well pump IW. Won't happen. And that's the goal.

1000 ISO doesn't pump anything if you're levelling up a 3*s past 100.

atomzed

stephen43084 wrote:

atomzed wrote:

Half of my fun is to decide which heroes to levelled based on my needs. 2 weeks ago I was sitting on 180k iso and could max levelled cmag, bp, dp, CM. I decided not to levelled any of them cos I wasn't really in need of a new max lvl 3.

During mystique pve, bp became an essential character. I was still hesitating between levelling BP, and just keeping the iso for cmag. I kept my bp at 130.

Towards the end, I decided that a max bp is essential.for a good placing, so I dump iso into bp to make him max. As I got 3 mystique cover I did feel that bp was worth it, even though he is not seeing much action now.

I personally feel that if you only look at the outcome (max roster, max character), you won't enjoy the game. The process is more important and much more fun than the destination.

But if their goal is roster diversity, it seems your personal story proves the flow iso is too low to meet that goal.

As HM mentioned, ISO flow is supposed to be a 'trickle'.

Despite that, 2 weeks after levelling BP, i now have enough ISO to max level CM, Cmag and DP. (do note that they are at least 100 levels already, and need "only" 130k to be levelled completely). I would say that they managed to nail the ISO flow quite well.

Just look at Colog who buy covers and not ISO. He is able to max level a character after release.

Imo, the problem of increasing roster slots price/ low 3* characters pull are greater problems than ISO flow.

rednailz

Spoit wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Except half the character releases are complete duds. You really shouldn't be wasting ISO on trash like or

...And then you're expected to lug them around to complete difficult PvE nodes, and use them in PvP. Which is lovely.

Let's be honest, how much would they really do, even leveled to 166?

I remember having to fight a nearly maxed out beast in teh guantlet, and I remember his green being a pain since it's low AP cost. But then I killed him the 2nd run through and moved on.....meh.

Doc Oc? I guess if you laid out bird strike or supernova and had a pile of tiles and doc oc had a wack of AP that no one used yet he might get you...sorta....I get excited when I see I'm fighting doc oc in a node. Easy win. not getting 1 of my iso

rednailz

arktos1971 wrote:

Well, that's what I was talking about in the dedicated thread.

I understand some don't want to spend a dime on the game, but for others, I'm sure they would be enclined to spend some bucks if Iso was MUCH cheaper.

Then, progressing in the game would be a matter of time spent and skill/dedication because you need to spend time to get the first covers in PvEs, and skill to get the additional ones in PvPs.

As said numerous times, you can't spend money on everything :

- Health Packs/Boosts/Shields (like Candy Crush business model),
- Iso to level the characters,

Covers can be won through events unless you want to go faster and buy them.

Buying ISO at $20 for 15k? No thanks. That's maybe 7 levels once you get over 110. Seems like a waste of money to me, but to each their own. 15K iso isn't too hard to grind out.