the scale of the iso problem

WelcomeDeath

jredd wrote:

you might have a lot of characters that need iso. i do too. pick the one that will benefit you most and put your iso into them. then move on to the next.

it's not like you need to have every character maxed right now.

if iso were easy to come by, everyone would have the same roster.

Thats not really true, still have to place/hit progression for covers/cp. Also, like I said above, I dont expect to max everyone now, but $14k or over a full year of continuous play to catch up really isnt reasonable. Even if it were double, thats still 1/2 a year of non stop play, which would translate to 2 years of realistic play (semi realistic, i cant play 6 hours a day, either). Thats not unreasonable and wouldnt break the game or even bridge the gap altogether, but it would mean a very slow catching up that would still take a long time, but would have more a feel of progress than falling behind all the time.

morph3us

Welcome Death wrote:

jredd wrote:

you might have a lot of characters that need iso. i do too. pick the one that will benefit you most and put your iso into them. then move on to the next.

it's not like you need to have every character maxed right now.

if iso were easy to come by, everyone would have the same roster.

Thats not really true, still have to place/hit progression for covers/cp. Also, like I said above, I dont expect to max everyone now, but $14k or over a full year of continuous play to catch up really isnt reasonable. Even if it were double, thats still 1/2 a year of non stop play, which would translate to 2 years of realistic play (semi realistic, i cant play 6 hours a day, either). Thats not unreasonable and wouldnt break the game or even bridge the gap altogether, but it would mean a very slow catching up that would still take a long time, but would have more a feel of progress than falling behind all the time.

All good points. Here's the issue, though, I think. This game is focused around collecting characters and roster building, which drives everyone to feel like they need to fully cover and level all their characters. Because it's entirely character-centric, that's the end goal, but it's an impossible end goal, which leads to frustration. By the same token, the devs have stated in the past that they don't want everyone to level every character, but to pick and choose, which is actually at odds with the way the game is designed. The monetary design of the game in terms of iso is designed to restrict your roster, but it goes against the actual game design.

If there was more in game content to use your characters in, I suspect the "iso debt" would feel like a less pressing problem, because we would feel like we were building our own individual rosters to play in varying challenges. So, the lack of variety in in-game content contributes significantly to the feeling of an iso problem.

Kjempen

Hendross wrote:

I have 13 fully covered 4*s at an average level of 172, a 3.9M ISO deficit.

But today I got 1000 + 500 from the revised DDP vault, so problem solved, right?

It's funny to think of, if we use this player's example, 3.9 M ISO equals 50 Mother Loads which in real cash equals about 5650 USD. Isn't this crazy?!

Calnexin

Welcome Death wrote:

$14k or over a full year of continuous play to catch up

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use? There's maybe a half dozen top-tier that everyone wants max-champed. Beyond that, how much play do you expect from the also-rans? Essentials, and boosted. You don't need to max them for them to be effective in that scenario.

It's a frame-of-reference issue. Those claiming a deficit are starting from a viewpoint that they need to level up every character to their maximum potential. That is demonstrably not the case. Many of the characters are niche, at best, and don't need to be maxed out to fill the role they do. The need to max them out is a construct created in your own mind. The game is designed to provide you options, not imperatives.

The release events all give you a taste of what the character can do. If their skillset fits into your preferred playstyle, you pursue the covers like a madman. If not, let it be. Some may languish in your roster with 10 covers and zero Iso invested. That's fine. You don't have to max out a character you don't like or never use. If you choose to do so, it's your option. It's not the Dev's fault for not giving you enough to do that alongside developing characters that actually matter to you.

Partyof5

morph3us wrote:

Here's the issue, though, I think. This game is focused around collecting characters and roster building, which drives everyone to feel like they need to fully cover and level all their characters. Because it's entirely character-centric, that's the end goal, but it's an impossible end goal, which leads to frustration. By the same token, the devs have stated in the past that they don't want everyone to level every character, but to pick and choose, which is actually at odds with the way the game is designed. The monetary design of the game in terms of iso is designed to restrict your roster, but it goes against the actual game design.

I agree.

Doing away with the RNG for covers and required characters would go a long way towards easing the need to collect all the characters.

Instead of required characters, why not require them to be from a certain affiliation. Instead of randomly rewarding us with covers when we cash in tokens, let us chose from a specific group of characters. With the amount of "work" involved in obtaining 4* and 5* covers through tokens, I can see why people feel the need to roster every one they get. Who wants to sell a 4* or 5* cover for a little ISO?

They could easily make progression in this game less frustrating and still maintain their revenue stream. Personally, I don't even want to roster every character. There are some I just don't want to use (and will never have enough ISO to level), so I sell their covers. That is frustrating though, and slows my progress towards leveling the characters I do want to use.

amusingfoo1

Vhailorx wrote:

energomash wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

As has been discussed at nauseum, iso is at a premium for 4* and 5* players.

*snip*

a lot of this has to do with whales spending money or cupcaking for advancement in PVP to get the higher tier of rewards.

so fine, people abuse the system; why then, should the developers kowtow to any demands when players are choosing to set themselves up in this manner?

Not really sure what whaling has to do with the iso shortage. Whales will always whale, seemingly no matter what price demiurge puts on their goods.

I'm not sure where the whales enter into this either. The biggest whales don't need to buy ISO, because they have a huge stockpile. Now, whether they got that huge stockpile because of buying it earlier, I don't know, but it doesn't seem terribly likely.

And it isn't the whales baking for advancement (at least not the big ones); they don't need to. They might do it to help alliance mates, but not to help themselves.

Vhailorx wrote:

The iso shortage is a separate issue resulting from the fact that iso rewards are calibrated for a 3* endgame, but 4is and 5*s cost 3-5x as much to level.

It's not as if finishing 1st in every single event would match the iso needs of a 4* roster. 1st in PvP = 5k iso. 1st in pve = 3k + sub rewards, best case scenario over 2 weeks is 40-50k iso (from placement rewards. Covers sold will provide lots more iso of course, but everyone gets those, regardless of whaling); each new 4* over the same two weeks is more than 350k.

You didn't add in alliance rewards; top-10 adds 5k for PvP and 3-5k for PvE. But that's still frustratingly short of the ever-increasing (due to new characters) want for more.

While what's provided hasn't increased in pace with needs, they have improved. Going to seven node rewards in PvE helped. Increasing daily for-play alliance rewards helped. The VIP program helps, if you're willing to shell out a little. Champion rewards help, once you get there (but that's a bit of a catch-22, as it takes a lot of ISO to get there).

(I might ramble a bit here... sorry, if so.) I'm thinking back to a poll someone put here, a while back. It asked what people were making, and what they thought would be a good daily intake. The upshot was that most people wanted just about double what they were getting. With the increases (helped by the double-ISO events, of course), I've actually been averaging about what I said I thought was ideal. But I'm still not getting enough ISO to keep up with leveling needs of new characters, despite that (there are still 3-4 4*s I'd really like to champion, but can't, and now I have three 5*s that could also use a few hundred thousand ISO each).

So I'm curious what people think is the ideal amount of ISO, these days, compared to what they're getting.

amusingfoo1

jojeda654 wrote:

amarrero wrote:

Who's PH again?

Professor Hex?

You get those covers from champion progression from Scarlet Witch, right?

Vhailorx

Calnexin wrote:

Welcome Death wrote:

$14k or over a full year of continuous play to catch up

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use? There's maybe a half dozen top-tier that everyone wants max-champed. Beyond that, how much play do you expect from the also-rans? Essentials, and boosted. You don't need to max them for them to be effective in that scenario.

It's a frame-of-reference issue. Those claiming a deficit are starting from a viewpoint that they need to level up every character to their maximum potential. That is demonstrably not the case. Many of the characters are niche, at best, and don't need to be maxed out to fill the role they do. The need to max them out is a construct created in your own mind. The game is designed to provide you options, not imperatives.

The release events all give you a taste of what the character can do. If their skillset fits into your preferred playstyle, you pursue the covers like a madman. If not, let it be. Some may languish in your roster with 10 covers and zero Iso invested. That's fine. You don't have to max out a character you don't like or never use. If you choose to do so, it's your option. It's not the Dev's fault for not giving you enough to do that alongside developing characters that actually matter to you.

Please stop arguing against a strawman. No one is saying 'I need to level all my characters now!' No one is even saying 'I need to level up all my characters the week after they are released.' All people are saying is "I don't want to feel like I am constantly falling behind, and the more i play, the longer it takes to level cool new characters."

People quote their 'iso gap' relative to their entire roster because that is the easiest way to measure the maximum quantity of iso that any given player could use, if given the opportunity. It's a much better measure for comparing rosters than trying to determine the arbitrary amount of iso needed to level the current top tier 4*s or some other squishy measure of 'real' needs.

It's pretty clear if you look at the total amount of iso 'needed' relative to roster strength that stronger rosters need more iso. the more players play the game, the more difficulty they will have leveling their rosters. you are correct that it isn't really necessary to have every character in a given tier maxed. But as currently constructed, the game heavily heavily favors players who do have all characters maxed. Champion rewards are very compelling relative to other resource streams in the game, and NOT having champions is doubly inefficient since extra covers must be sold for a small amount of iso. Additionally, the scaling and MMR mechanics mean that once a player maxes 3-5 characters in a tier, their non-maxed characters are significantly less useful (they are too weak to use in hard PVE nodes, and will be outclassed by any visible PVP opponent). And much of the fun of this game comes from experimenting with different teams and finding fun synergies, so not leveling everyone substantially impacts one's roster possibilities.

All of which means, IMO, that it is perfectly reasonable for players to want to be able to max out most of their roster eventually (even if they will never actually get to a fully maxed roster without spending because of the new release rate).

simonsez

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

dsds

simonsez wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

I totally agree with this. It's almost like they release characters that are useless to decrease the draw rates for the ones we want while keeping the illusion that the draw rates are still reasonable.

For example draw rate for 5* is 15% in classic LT. But then how many of those 5* are useful? There's oml and phoenix, that's it. so what is the actual draw rate of a useful 5*, it's 7.5%, but because they have useless silver surfer and black spider man, it leaves the impression that it is a 15% draw rate for useful characters.

wymtime

simonsez wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

To add to simonsez point what happens if and when 4* are essential in PVP?? I think a lot more people will want to level Cho and IW, and Mr F. They might be lower tier but having them at max level will give them so much more health. If you have to use Cho wouldn't you rather have a level 350 Cho instead of 120? Would you rather take on a team with a level 120 Cho instead of 350? Even lower tier 4* can cause headaches when buffed.

chamber44

simonsez wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

I actually think that they (the devs) think 3 things:

1) every character is good, which therefore means:

2) every character should be rostered, and

3) every rostered character should be maxed.

I've seen posted here on the forum that the devs have said that we should pick and choose, but the presence of Required Character nodes seems to contradict that. Now, we certainly aren't being forced to roster/max everything, but why else do they exist? Are there that many fans of Drax, or Quake, or tinykitty Cho that would necessitate the use of the devs time and energy to create if they didn't think we were going to be using them all the time?

nigelregal

From my point of view if you do not have the ISO to level then you either choose to open tokens and likely sell duplicate covers or hoard tokens and command points.

If I did optimal way of hoard every token until I have ISO to champion all my 3* and 4* that can be championed who are good to use then save up enough ISO to champion 1 4* and open tokens until I cover a worthwhile character; over time I would start to grow command points in the 1000s and 100s of legendary tokens.

So the big reward from the game is opening tokens and being happy about it is now lost and you are just grinding ISO for a month then get a little taste of it then wait again for another month or so.

Polares

dsds wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

I totally agree with this. It's almost like they release characters that are useless to decrease the draw rates for the ones we want while keeping the illusion that the draw rates are still reasonable.

For example draw rate for 5* is 15% in classic LT. But then how many of those 5* are useful? There's oml and phoenix, that's it. so what is the actual draw rate of a useful 5*, it's 7.5%, but because they have useless silver surfer and black spider man, it leaves the impression that it is a 15% draw rate for useful characters.

Yeah I agree too. In a character centric game knowing that you wont be able to use 60% of the chars is stupid.

Imagine a game like Overwatch where you could use just 3 of the total number of characters. Or Street Fighter. Or any game like this. And then this is exactly what happens here.

Getting the covers should be the hardest part, and yeah we should not be able to level a char instantaneously, but requiring three weeks, playing two to three hours a day for levelling one char? THAT IS RIDICULOUS

KGB

Polares wrote:

dsds wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

This is my disconnect. What are you catching up to? Every "Iso deficit" post I've seen quotes a number based on their own roster.

How real is that number? Are you ever going to use Chulk or IW for anything but their DDQ? Does that count as a deficit?

Outside that, how many other characters will you actually use?

You know what my disconnect is? Why anyone would think that introducing tons of game content we're not meant to use, isn't ridiculously awful game design.

I totally agree with this. It's almost like they release characters that are useless to decrease the draw rates for the ones we want while keeping the illusion that the draw rates are still reasonable.

For example draw rate for 5* is 15% in classic LT. But then how many of those 5* are useful? There's oml and phoenix, that's it. so what is the actual draw rate of a useful 5*, it's 7.5%, but because they have useless silver surfer and black spider man, it leaves the impression that it is a 15% draw rate for useful characters.

Yeah I agree too. In a character centric game knowing that you wont be able to use 60% of the chars is stupid.

Imagine a game like Overwatch where you could use just 3 of the total number of characters. Or Street Fighter. Or any game like this. And then this is exactly what happens here.

Getting the covers should be the hardest part, and yeah we should not be able to level a char instantaneously, but requiring three weeks, playing two to three hours a day for levelling one char? THAT IS RIDICULOUS

Is is that ridiculous?

I never played World of Warcraft but I had a friend who played 3-4 hrs a day for several years. He was leveling up various character classes/races etc to max. Each one would take him months of play time. When I asked why he kept spending the hours doing new characters he said it was because he wanted to try out the different abilities.

In many ways that's not *that* much different than how this game works.

The biggest difference between the games is how characters are leveled. In WoW you have to use the actual character to earn XP. Here you use existing older characters and transfer their XP via ISO. I've always found that to be a strange game mechanic. Clearly it's meant to substitute for having level/tier based game content.



Maybe what's needed for 4* characters is the ability to swap levels between any 2 fully covered 4*s. For example lets say you have a champed HB at 275 and fully covered Nova at 150. You could select the swap button and voila, Nova is 275 and HB is 150. Now you can play with a champed Nova with the additional benefits being you can now re-spec Nova (if needed) and apply any Nova covers to increase the champ levels.

Set the cost of this swap to be something like 5-10K ISO. Also limit swaps so that boosted characters (current week and next week) can't be part of a swap (to prevent players from always swapping into boosted characters).

This would at least let players experiment/use all their covered 4*s while gradually earning enough ISO to level them all.

KGB

Calnexin

Vhailorx wrote:

Please stop arguing against a strawman. No one is saying 'I need to level all my characters now!' No one is even saying 'I need to level up all my characters the week after they are released.' All people are saying is "I don't want to feel like I am constantly falling behind, and the more i play, the longer it takes to level cool new characters."

Falling behind whom or what? If the system is what it is, everyone is falling equally behind, and as such, are on a level playing field. As a competitive game, we're playing against each other. RNG madness aside, the game doesn't favor anyone. You get out what you put in (more or less).

I recognize I'm clearly in the minority here, so I'll shut up after this. I have a different viewpoint, but I'm also far less invested in the game. I like playing it and I enjoy reading about it on the forums, but I'm no longer passionate about it. I just think that stressing over maxing out covers and levels for all available characters is a frustrating thing to focus on, and I don't think any change to the system will be enough to satiate that desire. Changing the frame of reference made the game more enjoyable for me.

JackTenrec

Certainly a lot of the ISO pressure involves raising characters to max level and paying the championing fee before covers expire. This is particularly tricky (I imagine) at the 4* level, where both the costs of leveling and the rarity of covers make both the effort required and the penalty for not achieving a particular ISO goal painful.

The alternative is to not open tokens of any sort or participate in events where you've got a character that's cover-maxed but the character is still underleveled to avoid queuing rewards which can expire, which is basically saying a) stop accepting rewards in the game or b) stop playing the game to avoid losing rewards.

Vhailorx

Calnexin wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Please stop arguing against a strawman. No one is saying 'I need to level all my characters now!' No one is even saying 'I need to level up all my characters the week after they are released.' All people are saying is "I don't want to feel like I am constantly falling behind, and the more i play, the longer it takes to level cool new characters."

Falling behind whom or what? *snip*

This is a good question. Perspective helps. And for me, the answer is falling behind my own roster.

I currently have 6 13/13 4*s , and 5 more at 10-12 covers. I don't have the iso to level a single 1. The newest of my well covered characters are probably Ghost Rider (11 covers) or 4* cyclops (10 covers). I also have Nova at 9 covers and x-23 at 8 covers as of this morning. Those are all very fun characters that have been on my roster for more than 6 months (Fury for more than 15 months), and are all still between level 110 and level 188. They offer me approximately zero value in high level PVP and limited value in PVE. Even when boosted, they are not strong enough to use in PVP (with my MMR, they will get torched in minutes if I try to use them above 300 points), and they aren't strong enough to use in PVE except for trivial nodes or when featured. And even when featured they aren't strong enough to use in the hardest nodes.

Over the last 6 months, I have played every day, sometimes as little as 30 minutes or an hour, and some times as many as 4 or 5 hours a day. And yet the list of characters on my roster that are theoretically well-covered enough to be useful contributors, but cannot be leveled for lack of iso has grown.

And the current cost for 'fixing' that problem with money is in excess of $4,000 worth of iso. So sure, you are right that I don't *need* to level any characters, and this is all a game. But I think it's reasonable for me to ask for a game that rewards dedicated playtime with expanded opportunities (especially when a lot of the fun of the game is mixing and matching different characters) rather than gating off half my 4* roster behind a time/money gate that is thousands of dollars or thousands of play hours thick.

It's great that you have a more relaxed perspective about the game, but I don't see how that makes the concerns of players in my position wrong. As currently constructed, the game gives out covers and iso at a wildly different rate (which isn't to say that I am happy with the cover distribution rate either, just that iso is an even scarcer resource), and that undercuts a lot of the games other systems.