ISO Shortage

Raffoon

I need more ISO. Depending on your stage in the game, you either also need more ISO, or just don't know that you need more ISO too. The Devs are aware of the shortage, but said they won't be working on anything for it until after Anniversary. It seemed like the double ISO from Anniversary would help this in the short term at least, though.

It didn't. Because of the nature of the Anniversary events, it at least seems like ISO gained overall has actually gone down, despite the doubling per game. This is because of less opportunities to earn ISO.

For example, Galactus involves clearing 5 goon nodes every 8 hours, while a regular PVE would have been 9-10 nodes, but would also have a grind at the end giving even more ISO. It would also have sub-nodes which give ISO at the end.

So how do we fix this? Please post any solutions you might have. Here's one to get things started.

Let's run 20 man bracket Lightning Rounds again for Anniversary! It sure won't fix things, but it will at least help in the short term.

Dankaminari

One easy fix is to increase the ISO gained from selling covers. 1* = 500, 2* = 1500 3* = 5000 4* = 10,000. Selling moonstone repeatedly at 1500 would be slightly less irritating.

Crowl

Dankaminari wrote:

One easy fix is to increase the ISO gained from selling covers. 1* = 500, 2* = 1500 3* = 5000 4* = 10,000. Selling moonstone repeatedly at 1500 would be slightly less irritating.

They couldn't even claim that your values are excessive since you are simply using their own values from the DDQ vault too.

udonomefoo

Standards cost 500 to buy, you can't sell them for 500 too.

TxMoose

I run LRs every week. t50 when I can time it, and when I can't I run the seeds out at least. special anniversary LRs would be huge if they were 2X iso. actually I'd be happy if they just made the normal LRs this week double iso. a few days of simulator will help too. and playing some pvp. not looking forward to gal2, but we did get 2 covers in gal1, but was not fun. if they don't crank up the difficulty, we'll at least get 2 covers again.

one thing complicating the iso issue with galactus is the number of wipes/retreats. those you get nothing for your effort. and had a really rough time in rd 6. came really close many times but only finished him of a few and I remember the second time I finished him off - 20 iso. only one reward earned and I pull that same slot my second time - that is so demoralizing when there are so many other unclaimed rewards in there. the anniversary events should treat the node rewards like a vault and not run 20 iso until the mini 'vault' is emptied. that would help too.

if you sold for double iso even it would help. all transactions (other than prologue) should be doubled this week - all of them. selling covers, selling a character for a slot, etc.

Unknown

The ISO shortage is a real problem. Without having multiple maxed characters my ISO goes all over the place. I never did the 2-3* transition for 3-4*. I just got covers all over and went from a few 2* to being lucky with 4* when there were only 3 of them to have. Now my roster is ok, I score alright in PVP But there are a lot of characters that could use some love. LRs are a great way to get ISO but for someone like me it isn't enough.

Vhailorx

I am a middle of the road, mostly f2p vet. I don't finish top 10 in many 4* releases, and I don't chase every 1300 or PVE legendary token, but I play regularly and have a steady supply of covers coming in. I use my iso conservatively and have generally had a stockpile of between 800,000 and 1.1million for the last 6 months (I went over 200,000 last anniversary and never looked back). I could spend my entire iso stockpile maxing the first 4 characters in my roster (4 fully covered 4*s all between levels 180 and 205) and still have an iso gap of several million across the rest of my roster. the gap between iso needs with even modest vet play, and iso earned is just massive and growing bigger every day.

IMO, every single iso award in the game should just get a zero tacked on the end of it. Is iso a main financial pillar of this game? does anyone actually buy the ridiculously overpriced iso packs?

Dankaminari

The issue is far more problematic than a simple week of double ISO rewards. The entire ISO reward structure needs to change.

the gap between iso needs with even modest vet play, and iso earned is just massive and growing bigger every day.

This is spot on.

blinktag

Vhailorx wrote:

the gap between iso needs with even modest vet play, and iso earned is just massive and growing bigger every day.

And is only exacerbated when characters are released much faster than ISO could possibly be earned to level them. Compounded each release, and triply so for 5* options.

PeterGibbons316

Honestly, I'd be happy with an expansion to the prologue with increased ISO rewards. Something you can do when you aren't actively engaged in events to grind out some ISO.

JVReal

I hate the fact that you have to sacrifice Experience points (Iso) to skip nodes in PVP. What we spend skipping looking for decent point value matches in one PVP would level some of our characters a couple more levels.

SnowcaTT

Time for me to do the Maths I have promised! xKOBALTx tried to figure out how many new characters we had last year over here: posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=418917

After the anniversary last year and before the anniversary this year (YEAR 2) we had a new:
1x 1* (spiderman)
0x 2* (Mrs. Marvel was last?)
12x 3* (Bullseye, Vision, SW, QS, KK, IF, Cyc, Cage, SG, Blade, Mystique, R&G)
14x 4* (Iceman, Mr. F, Fal-Cap, DPXF, JG, Ant-Man, Thing, Carnage, HB, PX, KP, Star Lord, Gamora, Elektra)
2x 4* (OML, SS)

Before the Anniversary last year (YEAR 1) we had

7x 1*, 14x 2*, 28x 3*, 3x 4* (DD "during", so discounting for now. Also will discount 5* characters for straight ISO comparison)

Hopefully the Wiki is correct (http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Iso_costs), how much ISO did you need to level each year?

Year 1: 7x28420 + 14x69530 + 28x172764 + 3x430437 = 7,301,063 ISO needed to max all year 1 characters.
Year 2: 1x28420 + 0x69530 + 12x172764 + 14x430437 = 8,127,706 ISO needed to max all year 2 characters.

This is how much it costs you right now. The amount of ISO needed to level all characters has MORE THAN DOUBLED in the last year, but double ISO is not here to stay for some reason....

GrumpySmurf1002

SnowcaTT wrote:

Time for me to do the Maths I have promised! xKOBALTx tried to figure out how many new characters we had last year over here: posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=418917

After the anniversary last year and before the anniversary this year (YEAR 2) we had a new:
1x 1* (spiderman)
0x 2* (Mrs. Marvel was last?)
12x 3* (Bullseye, Vision, SW, QS, KK, IF, Cyc, Cage, SG, Blade, Mystique, R&G)
14x 4* (Iceman, Mr. F, Fal-Cap, DPXF, JG, Ant-Man, Thing, Carnage, HB, PX, KP, Star Lord, Gamora, Elektra)
2x 4* (OML, SS)

Before the Anniversary last year (YEAR 1) we had

7x 1*, 14x 2*, 28x 3*, 3x 4* (DD "during", so discounting for now. Also will discount 5* characters for straight ISO comparison)

Hopefully the Wiki is correct (http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Iso_costs), how much ISO did you need to level each year?

Year 1: 7x28420 + 14x69530 + 28x172764 + 3x430437 = 7,301,063 ISO needed to max all year 1 characters.
Year 2: 1x28420 + 0x69530 + 12x172764 + 14x430437 = 8,127,706 ISO needed to max all year 2 characters.

This is how much it costs you right now. The amount of ISO needed to level all characters has MORE THAN DOUBLED in the last year, but double ISO is not here to stay for some reason....

Wiki's not correct, those are the pre-update Iso costs. So they apply to year 1 but a chunk of this year had the new costs, which I can't access this second.

Turbosmooth

I hate to say it, but perhaps you could get 750 ISO x5 per day by watching ads. No one wants to spend money on ISO and D3 wants revenue. A lot of other games let you get bonuses from watching ads. Of course I prefer to be able to farm ISO by playing, and as a compromise another permanent story would be great to go with it so can get another 4x farm plus the daily bonus.