ISO = Experience Points

Mawtful

ISO is, effectively, equivalent to Experience Points; the point of difference is that we store up ISO and dump large amount of it at once. Despite increased ISO at progression rewards and incoming streak bonus ISO, it seems that enough players still aren't content with the rate of acquisition. Personally, I want to see all the recently announced changes implemented and use those for a week or two before I pass judgement but I can't help myself from trying to come up with a solution that satisfies all parties. Here's what I've come up with.

Whenever you would earn ISO, "clone" it. The reward goes to your ISO bank just like it does now, the "cloned" amount is applied automatically to the heroes in that match.

I think this is the best way to give out extra ISO. It's what players want, just maybe not in the form they had in mind (that is: a free mountain of ISO). I think it could also promote roster diversity. You can still farm ISO using a team of capped heroes, but that's going to pass up the "experience" bonus. The best way to earn ISO for these heroes is to use them in your team.

Unknown

I am trying to think of a major drawback to this idea, but for the life of me I can't. I really like it.

MarvelMan

I like it. Would you propose that the "cloned" ISO be evenly distributed to the 3 heroes used, based on skill usage or level?

Unknown

This is brilliant

Unknown

Good idea.

I often used to find myself thinking that I needed to use my low level guys to get them XP, **** a legacy of previous role playing experiences.

Unknown

Makes sense to me. I have always thought the current iso distribution system was weird and counterproductive seeing as every other game levels up the characters you use as you use them. Even if the 'cloned' iso that went to the active fighting heros was half of what you earned - it would still be a good thing for the game as a whole. That way you still get rewarded for using Loki when he is a required character and you still have iso to put towards the team you are working on maxing out. This woud be especially helpful with the scaling system that seems to push us to 230 mobs with guest/buffed characters.

Unknown

I like the idea. I assume the ISO would get applied to each hero instead of being split evenly. Either way it would be a nice boost. However, I doubt the devs want to flood the game with more ISO even though to us it's really just a small amount. More free ISO is less $$ for them.

Unknown

Yo, Ice, I found your next update.

danikalil

I say, grand idea. Playing battles for nothing is annoying. Anyone who's played RPGs must feel something is amiss there.

My wife points out, however, that this would mean everyone would get Lv85 Thor really fast. And no one would ever bother to play with the less relevant characters...roster diversity would be reduced. Or would it? Hmm.

Unknown

danikalil wrote:

And no one would ever bother to play with the less relevant characters...roster diversity would be reduced. Or would it? Hmm.

Actually, it should increase roster diversity, since people would avoid using maxed out guys unless they needed to. Why turn down free iso?

Unknown

It would also create interesting dynamics for characters who are cover maxed vs ones that aren't. I like using Punisher/Patch/Spidey (don't have hood or mags to use the blue or purple for mags). Right now I have them where Patch tanks for red and green but cap is 128/141 and Punisher has all his covers. If I continue to use them (equal level at 101 now), Punisher will eclipse Patch and make Patch's red/yellow useless.

I kinda like the idea of basically double Iso, but it can seriously wreak havoc on teams that depend on certain characters taking hits for others (specifically Hulk and Patch)

danikalil

dlaw008 wrote:

danikalil wrote:

And no one would ever bother to play with the less relevant characters...roster diversity would be reduced. Or would it? Hmm.

Actually, it should increase roster diversity, since people would avoid using maxed out guys unless they needed to. Why turn down free iso?

Oh yes, in the long run it would mean roster diversity. What I meant was, whenever you get a new hero, you'll have to play with him for a loooong time, even though you'd rather switch between heroes, just to make him level faster. So we'd see tons of Psylockes next week. Anyway, the idea is excellent.

Unknown

This won't be the popular opinion, but I'm dreading the day that we all have six 141s on the roster. It's going to kill the best part of the game. Progression.

Let's delay gratification.

Nemek

aboudreau wrote:

This won't be the popular opinion, but I'm dreading the day that we all have six 141s on the roster. It's going to kill the best part of the game. Progression.

Let's delay gratification.

I'm pretty worried about this day, too.

Katai

Numbers can be adjusted. Doubling the effective ISO-8 you get probably isn't the right metric, but I like the direction this takes. It encourages you to play characters you don't normally use, which I like a lot.

The proper way would probably be to give maybe 50% (or something to that effect) of the winnings to the character's level. This, of course, wouldn't apply to first-win bonuses or dailies. Heck, even with the 5000 iso-8 winnings, that would give 800 points towards a level to a team (half of 5000 split between three characters). Not exactly a monumental amount, but it feels good to get.

Unknown

It's a really great idea, of course the numbers would need tweeking, you can't just double the amount of ISO entering the game.

However, the really great part of of the idea imo is that it encourages you to use heroes you normally don't, so it means you have to sometimes make choices.....do you use your maxed out covers in order to do well in a tournament to get rewards, or do you not care as much about a certain tournament and use your lower level covers in order to level them and get more ISO?

I feel you would then see a very large permutation of heroes, with people probably starting tournaments with lower level heroes, and as they get to the higher ranks, subbing in their maxed heroes in order to maintain and improve their rank. It would definitely make the beginning and middle phases of tournaments more diverse and interesting.

Mawtful

Thanks for the kind words and the responses. I didn't expect to get quite so much feedback.

Maggotbreath wrote:

It would also create interesting dynamics for characters who are cover maxed vs ones that aren't. I like using Punisher/Patch/Spidey (don't have hood or mags to use the blue or purple for mags). Right now I have them where Patch tanks for red and green but cap is 128/141 and Punisher has all his covers. If I continue to use them (equal level at 101 now), Punisher will eclipse Patch and make Patch's red/yellow useless.

I kinda like the idea of basically double Iso, but it can seriously wreak havoc on teams that depend on certain characters taking hits for others (specifically Hulk and Patch)

This was the only downside I could think of when I was coming up with the idea. There are two ways to handle this, neither of which are elegant.

1. Instead of being auto-assigned, the player is presented with an EXP pool to assign to the active heroes after each battle, with the option to discard it. This would slow the game down significantly.
2. Players can make a one-off ISO payment to "lock" experience for a character. Pay again to "unlock". This adds an extra ISO sink, which is probably something that players would prefer to avoid.

"Respec" is also slated to include a small ISO payment, so perhaps the second option is more likely, but would require a lot more work for the devs.

Unknown

I do like how it promotes usage if a wider variety of characters.

Personally, I keep certain characters purposely underlevelled. So this would eliminate that strategy, unless you can choose to "lock" a character.

Unknown

aboudreau wrote:

This won't be the popular opinion, but I'm dreading the day that we all have six 141s on the roster. It's going to kill the best part of the game. Progression.

Let's delay gratification.

Yeah, they should've done like MMOs - progressively increase level cap. I personally think they've introduce too much too fast. Too many new characters all at once. The game is still young. How many more characters fit into the Dark Reign saga? Maybe they've already diverged. But anyway, as usual I've gone off topic...

I really like the idea of XP upon finishing fights. You would feel like you were working toward something other than 20 ISO. However, I would be concerned about the subsequent flood of ISO. It would have to be that you could no longer level up characters using ISO. The amount of ISO rewards should also be decreased to balance the market. Not a lot! But big rewards such as 500 and 1000 should be a real accomplishment to obtain.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

aboudreau wrote:

This won't be the popular opinion, but I'm dreading the day that we all have six 141s on the roster. It's going to kill the best part of the game. Progression.

Let's delay gratification.

I'm pretty worried about this day, too.

By the time lots of people are maxed 141, by a lot I mean like a lot, there will be a lot more 4* and game will be moving towards them as the standard.

Unknown

RangoFett wrote:

I am trying to think of a major drawback to this idea, but for the life of me I can't. I really like it.

Dude with high level covers gets a new cover. 141 hulk +141 BWGS + new char.
Farm away to speed level the 3rd character. The 3rd is viable and contributing within an hour or 2. Lvl 40 doesn't take long.


The idea overall is great. There would have to be tweaks to prevent things like this^
There would have to be a system on how much ISO could be "cloned" as you call it, to make the the ISO dump isn't too extreme. Otherwise I can definitely see the potential to create roster diversity.