The flow of ISO-8 in MPQ

Unknown

So recently the devs have been making some efforts to increase the daily ISO gain of agents. I personally have noticed big gains partially due to streak bonuses. The recent cover sell price changed has also helped a reasonable amount. I personally am pretty happy with the current amount of ISO gained especially compared to these last few months progressing into 3* land.

There is only 1 thing I would still love to see an ISO-8 increase on. If the dud reward in Pve could be raised from 20 to 35. Of course nothing is guaranteed but I see these positives in result:
Increased agent morale
Increased agent participation in Pve events.
Typical positives from ISO gain increase


How is every1 else feeling about current ISO gain?



Edit: if they increased the ISO gain in Pve this would exclude the prologue. Can't be doubling the ISO from lvl 1 farming.

MarvelMan

Sounds reasonable to me. Especially since they bumped the boost cost. Having boosts at 3 for 100 ISO meant that 20 iso wins werent enough to cover buying a pack one and that seemed fair. Now that boosts are 200 (right?) having a small increase in the booby prize seems fair.

Nemek

Last week, I managed to clear 60K ISO in two days. It was glorious.

On Feb 25th, I had 227K ISO saved up (from an old screenshot). Today, I have 352K ISO saved. I spent around 30K in that time span...or whatever it takes to get BP, C Mag, and Hood all up to lvl 50.

352 - 227 + 30 = 155K ISO generated since Feb 25th, which is like 15K ISO a day or so.

I'd say half of it was from just seed teams in LRs. 10K from Elite Tourney. Most of the rest from PvEs. I gain very little from regular PvP, since I only make one big push at the very end these days, and boost/skip through half of that anyway.

After all of that, it's probably STILL a slower rate than when Facebook sharing was so utterly broken.

Victory Bonus probably increased my total ISO gain by about 18-20%, since it's rare that I actually skip (unless it's BattleAngel).

Edit: Realized I didn't really answer the question about the 20 ISO prizes. For me, personally, it would have likely made a pretty insignificant difference looking at the big picture. If the consolation prize were doubled or tripled, it probably only would have made a difference of a thousand ISO, maybe a tad more. I think what irks me about the consolation prize is more the feeling of not getting what I want (the 500 ISO prize.) I don't think increasing the consolation prize will have a dramatic effect on the total ISO gained by the playing population, but I think it's one of those cases where it gets to be a slippery slope. Today, maybe 50 ISO sounds 'fair' since it's quite an upgrade, but I'd suspect that months from now players would just complain about that amount.

Mawtful

I think I agree with everything you said.

I'm not sure of the best way to tackle the 20 ISO issue; I think that perhaps giving out all of the possible rewards first might be a start.

Unknown

I missed out on Facebook sharing entirely (since I connected to a real facebook account) so having the current ISO flow is nice.

Unknown

Any increase in ISO-8 is welcomed. However I think the way to fix this is to have ISO-8 be based on the levels of whoever you're fighting, like in a traditional RPG. The Prologue could be a special case that's locked down to 20 since you can infinitely grind it. I'd even be ok with PVP stayed with the 70/140 scheme with the skip tax/bonus. PVE is where it's a major disappointment to see 20 ISO-8 be rewarded. PVE ISO-8 payout could be based on some algorithm that takes into account the level of the opponent you're fighting and reward you accordingly.

Unknown

I really didn't think a 30 iso victory bonus would really move the needle, but I've definitely felt a tangible increase in iso gained even over a short period of time. I just wish LRs were during the weekend so I could really farm the **** out of them.

The 20 iso booby prize is definitely a kick to the balls... I agree the booby prize should scale with the levels of the goons. maybe 40 for 100+ and 60 for 200+?

Unknown

Mawtful wrote:

I think I agree with everything you said.

I'm not sure of the best way to tackle the 20 ISO issue; I think that perhaps giving out all of the possible rewards first might be a start.

A hope was that by this small ISO increase, the rewards not coming 1st might not be so bad.

Let's look at it like this. You want the 500 ISO reward from every mission, a common goal. Let's give the very modest average of 5 failed attempts per mission. Failed attempt being 20 ISO reward before seeing a 500 ISO prize. A 15 ISO increase over 5 attempts per mission. 15x5= 75 ISO per mission. 6 missions per node x 2 nodes + 3 main bracket missions = 15 missions. 15x75 = 1125. A sub event lasts 1-2 days so a 1.5 day average over 10 days = 7 subs x 1125 = 7875 ISO increase over the course of a Pve event for the average player. If you still are not enticed to participate then less. For very dedicated players this could turn into an extra 20-30k per Pve event. I see this as a fair reward for grinding but not enough to totally overload the ISO inflow. I figured a few out there would wanna see a little math even if based off estimates.

Unknown

Mondo wrote:

Any increase in ISO-8 is welcomed. However I think the way to fix this is to have ISO-8 be based on the levels of whoever you're fighting, like in a traditional RPG. The Prologue could be a special case that's locked down to 20 since you can infinitely grind it. I'd even be ok with PVP stayed with the 70/140 scheme with the skip tax/bonus. PVE is where it's a major disappointment to see 20 ISO-8 be rewarded. PVE ISO-8 payout could be based on some algorithm that takes into account the level of the opponent you're fighting and reward you accordingly.

An easy fix, alien invasion mentioned something in his post already would be, if an enemy opponent's level reaches 200 then the booby prize would increase to 50.

Unknown

The Victory Bonus has been awesome. I would like pve to keep the 500 iso reward in easy and hard subs. And I don't like boosts in the rewards instead of iso(or standard tokens tht can be sold for iso). Boosts are so watered down now that x3 +1 red/yellow starting ap boost is not nearly as valuable as 100 ISo (to me at least).

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Mondo wrote:

Any increase in ISO-8 is welcomed. However I think the way to fix this is to have ISO-8 be based on the levels of whoever you're fighting, like in a traditional RPG. The Prologue could be a special case that's locked down to 20 since you can infinitely grind it. I'd even be ok with PVP stayed with the 70/140 scheme with the skip tax/bonus. PVE is where it's a major disappointment to see 20 ISO-8 be rewarded. PVE ISO-8 payout could be based on some algorithm that takes into account the level of the opponent you're fighting and reward you accordingly.

An easy fix, alien invasion mentioned something in his post already would be, if an enemy opponent's level reaches 200 then the booby prize would increase to 50.

I would totally be ok with that too. If they want to cap it at levels instead of making a scaling algorithm for opponent team levels, I'm good with that. Since the lowest ISO-8 reward for any node is 100, then the booby prize for 200+ enemies should be up to 99 (I'd say 75 ISO-8 would be ok). Perhaps something along the lines of:

lvl 1-50: 20 ISO
lvl 51-100: 30 ISO
lvl 101-150: 40 ISO
lvl 151-200: 50 ISO
lvl 201+: 60 ISO

I could get onboard with that for PVE.

Unknown

@nemek
Thanks for the input towards my idea but the thread isn't necessarily just for that. I'm interested in hearing any thoughts towards ISO gain rate in general so if people wanna comment on other related ideas that's all good.

@mondo

A little more difficult to implement all the different levels but maybe not too much more. I have no knowledge of programming. I think a scaling rate or a set rate with the 1 scaling landmark would work. I think i would prefer the simplified way either way though. It doesn't have to be 50iso for 200+. It could be 40 ISO for 160+ or 50 ISO for 180+ or anything the devs deem a fair increase for their cutoff level from normal to difficult.

Unknown

We're having PVE content almost constantly, and they've introduced some higher ISO rewards, so I think that's helping too. I've done some pretty heavy leveling up lately, to the extent I'm facing a crisis of what to do next.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

We're having PVE content almost constantly, and they've introduced some higher ISO rewards, so I think that's helping too. I've done some pretty heavy leveling up lately, to the extent I'm facing a crisis of what to do next.

So are you saying the ISO level is good where it stands? It's not necessarily a negative point of view. ISO gain can be a fragile thing over long periods. The rate at which they program compared to the rate at which the average-above average not quite insane player progresses. If ISO flow is too high it can be even more damaging than if it is a little too low. That's why I think subtle increases are always best in this area. I think we are almost to a great rate but there's a little breathing room left.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

We're having PVE content almost constantly, and they've introduced some higher ISO rewards, so I think that's helping too. I've done some pretty heavy leveling up lately, to the extent I'm facing a crisis of what to do next.

So are you saying the ISO level is good where it stands? It's not necessarily a negative point of view. ISO gain can be a fragile thing over long periods. The rate at which they program compared to the rate at which the average-above average not quite insane player progresses. If ISO flow is too high it can be even more damaging than if it is a little too low. That's why I think subtle increases are always best in this area. I think we are almost to a great rate but there's a little breathing room left.

Yup.

Keep in mind human behavior here.

If the devs pour in too much ISO too quickly and then need to act to retract their error, the forum is will tinykitty explode. (See Simulator/Brotherhood 5k -> 2.5k -> 1k ISO missions)

On the other hand, through proper mudflation control, the devs can slowly over time open the spigot of ISO (as they have been doing) to increase the power levels of players. Keep in mind where the players are in terms of the entire story and what covers the devs are issuing via tourney/events. Likely, the "average" mid-tier account is playing with 3x 85s. 3*** covers are the high-tier prizes in tourneys, which offers a path for future progression. Players with 3x 120-141s, are ahead of the power curve currently.

Remember when 2** covers were high tier prizes in early PvP tourneys? When the game reaches a point where 4**** covers become 2nd - 45th place PvP prices, then at that point, ISO gain should reflect an expected "average" mid-tier roster of 3x 120-141s. Given that we are only 4/25 chapters into the story, I doubt that we will see this scenario occur for quite awhile (at least until the mid-point, or escalation of the story; technically we are still in the introduction of the narrative).

Unknown

Lightning Round farming is absolute heaven now with the bonus implemented. I wouldn't mind seeing a small bump in consolation ISO prizes in PvE, but that's almost as much to combat the psychological impact of seeing that 20 ISO pop up than it is the actual difference 30-50 ISO would make instead (although that would add up, as mentioned earlier).

I agree that ISO tweaks should be made subtly rather than risk having to wildly over correct, but it's a tough metric to gauge given the way the meta is changing. By which I mean we're seeing a massive influx in the rate of new character introduction. People are going to have to be much more strategic in how they distribute their ISO as they move into a 3* roster, and those who already have max 3* heroes will still be ISO constrained, because it will take raising a new character to max levels in order to make it worth swapping out one of their current mainstays.

If I'm the devs, that puts me in a pickle. I don't want everyone to be running around with max heroes. But, I also want people to be willing to buy covers for their new heroes, which they're much less likely to do if they can't level them up to the new caps. As more 4*s are added this will become an increasingly difficult problem to solve, given that they're roughly 3 times the ISO required to max out a 3*.

Grind on, my brothers and sisters!

MarvelMan

WYP has some excellent points there. I know that as a mid to high player Im currently iso constrained. I have most chars covered (aside from Patch, Psy and BP) but dont have the iso to promote then into my line up. That leads me to think that the spigot needs to be opened a tad, but SLOWLY. Leave it as is with the skip tax/non-skip bonus for 3+ weeks and see.

Edit: In my mind the next increase should be to the PVE 20 iso booby prize, but small like the OPs suggestion.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

We're having PVE content almost constantly, and they've introduced some higher ISO rewards, so I think that's helping too. I've done some pretty heavy leveling up lately, to the extent I'm facing a crisis of what to do next.

So are you saying the ISO level is good where it stands? It's not necessarily a negative point of view. ISO gain can be a fragile thing over long periods. The rate at which they program compared to the rate at which the average-above average not quite insane player progresses. If ISO flow is too high it can be even more damaging than if it is a little too low. That's why I think subtle increases are always best in this area. I think we are almost to a great rate but there's a little breathing room left.

More or less. I'm leveling up the people I want to, for the most part - a little more would be nice, but I think I'm okay where it's been lately. Recently, I've taken Daken from 30 to 69, taken all of my 3*s that can make it up to 75th level, taken Black Panther to 40-something (he'll cap at 53), Invisible Woman from 34 to 53, IM40 from 28 to 53, MN Magneto from 30 to 50, Hood from 15 to 25, Magneto from 25 to 64, Loki from 38 to 64, Spider-Man from 53 to 66, and Thor and OBW from 60 to 75. I'd really kind of like to start really taking the 3*s up, but I want to wait until I've got a few more covers for a few more of them to let them break away, because I don't want to screw up my PVE scaling.

Unknown

I don't understand everyone who is extolling the bonus as some great boon to ISO collection. With slower match times, you only can get 10-14 matches an hour ... Which only equals out to an additional 400 ISO an hour. Assuming you never skip, but when you get to the upper tiers of the PVP ladder or MMR hell, you will be skipping a lot.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

I don't understand everyone who is extolling the bonus as some great boon to ISO collection. With slower match times, you only can get 10-14 matches an hour ... Which only equals out to an additional 400 ISO an hour. Assuming you never skip, but when you get to the upper tiers of the PVP ladder or MMR hell, you will be skipping a lot.

It's not a massive boost but a boost none the less. We did mention earlier that a lot of us preferred subtle ISO increase. To make math simple let's run at 5 hours a day x 400 ISO an hour x 7 days a week = 14,000 ISO / week. Or approximately 7 levels on an average 3 star over the course if a week. An extra 7 levels from this + an extra 2-3 levels from sell price changes and a few more levels if 20 ISO reward increases. 12-15 levels a week extra from what you have been receiving to me is a reasonable increase.

Unknown

Not really for me; I still skip like a mofo.