How about letting us use ISO to buy HP?

DarthDeVo

I'm sure this topic has been broached before, but I'm seriously hurting for HP right now. I know for others the real drought is ISO, and I've had a few instances where I've been shortchanged of it to be sure, but the real obstacle for me right now is lack of HP. I never, ever have enough to buy a new roster slot, which runs me 550 points right now.

I'm in a rough spot where unless I have all essential required characters for a PVE, I can't seem to place high enough in a sub to win any HP. I'm doing well if I can get some from placement in the overall event.

Same thing goes for placement in PVP. It seems like it's getting harder for me to even get HP from PVP progression rewards.

I understand that buying HP is probably a pretty good source of income for the devs, but it's really not in my budget right now.

The game allows us to spend 500 ISO in lieu of a standard token. Would it be the end of the world to institute a similar option for using ISO to buy HP?

I would propose a 100:1 ratio, where 100 ISO gets you 1 HP, or 10,000 ISO gets you 100 HP. Maybe that would be a little skewed to the point no one would even bother, but it would be nice to at least have the option. I can't tell you how many times I've had to sell covers because they were expiring and I was only 25 or 50 points shy of being able to open a roster slot. In those instances, I would probably drop 2,500 or 5,000 ISO in order to get another slot filled.

DevilMayGrind

How about letting us buy ISO with HP instead? :}

DarthDeVo

DevilMayGrind wrote:

How about letting us buy ISO with HP instead? :}

Hey, the more options, the better. Right now I can't possibly conceive being so flush with HP I would choose to use it to get ISO, but I suppose maybe one day I'll get there. At the rate I'm going, 5 years sounds about right.

DarthDeVo

aesthetocyst wrote:

Nah. See the "store"? It's common to say, since HP cover buys ended, that HP is "worthless" now, but HP is still the currency for buying slots shields and packs.

I figure this is probably a long shot and don't seriously expect it to be implemented. I just figured if there was a system allowing the use of ISO to essentially buy standard tokens, maybe one could be implemented for HP. I kind of thought 100:1 was a fairly decent ratio, but maybe it could be 1,000:1 to perhaps set the bar of entry higher.

From what I gather, at upper limits ISO is pretty limited. I see lots of complaining about ISO shortages and asking for ways to get more. Also, many people at upper limits seem to have no problem obtaining HP and are so flush with it they can't get rid of it fast enough.

Just take your example. From my point of view, I can't even fathom calling HP worthless. So how likely would it be that people past a certain point would even bother buying HP with ISO? I would imagine they wouldn't bother wasting precious ISO on HP. But having the option available would be invaluable for others.

aesthetocyst wrote:

The smart move for the devs is to offer more opportunities to earn through competition. In competitive models everyone who enters burns resources but few win the goodies.

I'm good with that too. Right now I have very few real options for getting HP, which is frustrating and discouraging. For instance I'm playing Venom Bomb right now. I'll get 50 HP through progression, and if I'm lucky will fall in the T200 slice at the end for another 25. I have no chance of getting any through any of the sub events. That's 75 HP over a four day event. At that rate through PVE alone it'll be about a month before I get enough to open another slot.

Odds are I'll pick up 25 or 50 here or there through PVP progression, but it seems like it's getting harder for me to even get those awards. Certainly not through placement. I can't shield because I don't have the HP to spare. So maybe the odd lucky pull from one of the taco vaults. The only other source is champ rewards, which don't happen all that often.

It just feels like opening roster slots is getting more and more rare, which is really slowing down my progression. I'm working on broadening my 3*'s right now. 4*'s seem like a pipe dream. As much as I would like to add them or keep the ones I have, it's almost doing me more harm than good to have them right now. It should be awesome to pull them from a Heroic or Legendary Token, but I pretty much have no choice but to sell them right now. No space on my roster. Which severely limits my odds of having the 4* required character for a PVE, which prevents me from placing well in sub events, which keeps me from earning HP. It's a vicious circle.

Eddiemon

DarthDeVo wrote:

I understand that buying HP is probably a pretty good source of income for the devs, but it's really not in my budget right now.

That's Ok, most of the game is free to play, why shouldn't it be completely free?

It's not a good source of income, it pretty much is their source of income.

Do you go to your favourite restaurant, tell them you are short on money and suggest models for them to give you free food and service?

DarthDeVo

Eddiemon wrote:

DarthDeVo wrote:

I understand that buying HP is probably a pretty good source of income for the devs, but it's really not in my budget right now.

That's Ok, most of the game is free to play, why shouldn't it be completely free?

It's not a good source of income, it pretty much is their source of income.

Do you go to your favourite restaurant, tell them you are short on money and suggest models for them to give you free food and service?

No, I just wouldn't go to the restaurant to begin with.

Look, I'm not opposed to buying HP, and there's a good chance I probably will when I get a more steady source of income and some debt paid down. I enjoy playing the game and I know the devs work hard on it to make it enjoyable, and they deserve to be paid just like anyone else.

All I'm saying is there's a way to essentially buy standard tokens using ISO. That can help someone with their progression, even if it's not terribly efficient. It just made me think, "Hey, there's a way to use ISO to get covers, even if you're at the mercy of RNG. That could potentially help someone progress in the game. Why not a way to use ISO to get HP?"

Maybe a 100:1 ratio is too generous and it could be 1,000:1 instead. That would probably make most people think twice and ask if it's really worth it, to trade 1,000 ISO for 1 HP. That would in theory prevent abuse, but could provide a potentially valuable asset for those who need it on short notice to maybe get 25 or 50 HP.

But yeah, I fully understand that the odds of something like this ever happening is somewhere between "slim" and "none." Just consider it me venting out loud.

killerkoala

they already have the ratio of "1200 iso : 200 HP"; if you consider the cost of real money to buy virtual currency. I'd covert like crazy if that were the case.

Phumade

Its a brutally tough problem.

I started during the age of blink gold chars. and the hp reward stream was reasonably sufficient to keep up with the pace of covers and new char intros. I think I only had to work through a back log of maybe 25-40 chrs and keep up with new char intros (there was also a long break where we had no new char intros. imagine that, we were once **** about how stale and infrequent new chars intros where). Where as your trying to work through a back log of 90 odd chrs and keep up with a consistent 2 week new char intro schedule.

For most of the f2p players, about 1/3 of hp income is from placements/progression, about 1/3 from daily resupply, and 1/3 hp is generated via the champion rewards.

My only suggestion is

Focus your pvp and pve placements to land you at the top of the 2* cover rewards.
Use these covers to keep consistently flipping 2* chars.
Focus on developing your 3* that drop out of the 2* champ tree.
Once these 3* are all fully covered and champ, then
focus on the 4* that result off the champion 3*.

Eventually, you find that this basic stable of chars will make you competitive for the 3* rewards. In general, I would tell you stay in the 2* tier until you can consistently win 2 or more 3* covers. Its really important to transition as fast as you can into a tier. You don't want to limp through the transition.

Of course its reasonable to invest in your favorite chars, but your priority needs to be building out your hp/cp/iso engines.

Of course make sure your in a top 100 alliance for the consistent hp.

Quebbster

I have found my HP supply skyrocketing once I started farming the 2* champion rewards. On the other hand, I am up to 102 roster slots and pretty much only need to buy new ones when a new character is released.

Kjeldbjerg

F2P here, 82 slots and 1000 hp per slot.
I generate around 1000 hero points net per week after # are paid.

So it is possible to keep up, but you need to hit some progression and t100 placements. Get in a good alliance, and be smart about who you roster. You don't need all characters from all tiers, so even though it hurts, sell your IW, cho, ragna etc and focus ob the characters you'll actually use.

TLCstormz

This is a great suggestion, along with the token trading in and the cover trading in suggestions.

It's all been said before, but I'll pass out on, nonetheless. Thanks.

:+D

biryon

Eddiemon wrote:

Do you go to your favourite restaurant, tell them you are short on money and suggest models for them to give you free food and service?

This is more like a soup kitchen that advertises free soup but then charges you $20 to rent a bowl. I know "free to play" games need to make money somehow, but this is the only game I've ever played that charges you just to keep rewards you've earned or lose them forever. Money for extra perks or cosmetics or to play longer, sure, but to keep what you've earned, no.

FWIW I spent over $100 on roster slots early on because I couldn't bear to just flush rewards I'd worked hard to earn down the toilet, so I'm not a freeloader. When it comes to recommending the game to friends and family though, I cannot recommend it in good conscience without mentioning this fact, and so far it's scared everyone off from even trying it.

Phumade

These are the covers that are rewards from 2* champs

2* 3* 4*
MHawkeye IM40 HBuster
Bullseye Bullseye KingPin
Bagman Spidey classic MM
OBW GSBW Nick Fury
MNmags cMags PX
thor Lazy thor Rhulk
Cap Lazy Cap Flaptain
Moonstone hulk Chulk
Ms. Marvel captain marvel Thing
Baby torch Human torch Thing
cStorm Mohawk storm Thoress
Wolverine Patch XFW
Daken Daken X23
Ares Rags X23

If your F2P, then then the LR chars + the above should be your highest priority with respect to building a self sustaining cover engine.

Its also a very reasonable and flexible roster that lets you compete very effectively at the high 3*/low 4* tier.

carrion_pigeons

I have a newb roster that I play occasionally and so I definitely sympathize. Building up a stable of roster slots is the most frustrating barrier to progression in the game for a long time. Despite that, it isn't the biggest one, at any stage.

I'm willing to bet you still have an iso deficit even at your level. Work on widening the number of usable characters in your current roster and you'll find the game actually getting easier. Then it'll be easier to get the HP you need to advance.

It's frustrating to sell off covers that might be useful someday but the reality is that the iso is more useful than 99% of the covers you're being tempted to "save".

madsalad

Remember the good old days when you had to pay to build an alliance? I think it's funny that they finally came to their senses and got rid of that but you can still pay HP to recall a T/U before the timer is up. WHO THE HELL IS USING THAT FEATURE?

JVReal

10:1 sounds much more reasonable than 100:1 or 1000:1.

Roster spots cap out at 1000HP per slot (they didn't used to... they used to continue to increase). 10,000 Iso for a roster slot, I'd pay. 100,000 Iso for a roster spot, no thank you... 1,000,000 iso for a roster slot, never!

Right now i'm at 100 slots, I have 2 duplicates, MBW for TU's and OBW building the second one to max by selling the first when I get cover maxed. I am missing several of the new releases. Will be getting Spiderwoman from this PVE (only one cover... yay?) and Wasp from Shield Sim, so that's either replacing my duplicates or I buy it with 2K HP that I've been accumulating from gameplay. I am Free to Play, and it is a very terrible position to be in at the beginning when you have 20 different covers and 10 slots.

an1979

In my case - I predict that it will take me ~390 days to F2P to all characters.
Now I'm missing only a few 5*.
With Dino about 6,3k left.

But it can be done much sooner - I didn't play PvE 3/4 of that time seriously or at all.


Simply you NEED TO BE in t250 PvP alliance - it is NOT hard! - 50HP
Make 725 points (4 time slice or 5th - easy) for 100HP
Then maybe try to be in t100 too (hard without good 3*, 4*) - 25HP

In PvE you need to do t50 each day. - 50HP.
No bracket sniping whatsoever.

It will be enough to make progression so (50/75 extra HP) and finish in t50 - 50HP.

+ HP from DDQ tokens and SHIELD resupply.

And you can (and SHOULD) turn ISO to HP

Make place for all 2* (except Bagman) to make 144* champions and recycle them again and again. 325HP and some goodies each time (for 7,7k ISO).

From normal tokens (opened ONLY when there is a free place)
Sell "bad" 3*! Keep only the best. Keep 4*.

Do not open LTokens. EVER.


Gives you 100-150HP daily on the averange.
In a year you will have fun opening everything

dsds

DevilMayGrind wrote:

How about letting us buy ISO with HP instead? :}

You can sort of do that indirectly. Buy tokens, open tokens, sell cover. Keep doing this until you get the character cover you want while getting iso. That's probably how Whales do it.

DarthDeVo

an1979 wrote:

Simply you NEED TO BE in t250 PvP alliance - it is NOT hard! - 50HP
Make 725 points (4 time slice or 5th - easy) for 100HP
Then maybe try to be in t100 too (hard without good 3*, 4*) - 25HP

In PvE you need to do t50 each day. - 50HP.
No bracket sniping whatsoever.

It will be enough to make progression so (50/75 extra HP) and finish in t50 - 50HP.

Maybe I should see if I can get in a better alliance, but I'm not sure I'd be able to pull my weight.

It used to be somewhat easier for me to hit the 725 mark in PvP, but I think my MMR has been bumped up recently since I've champed a few 3* characters (perhaps a bit prematurely, in hindsight, but it seemed a waste to NOT get the champ rewards) and it's hard to even get to the 400 or 500 mark, unless I burn a ton of health packs and/or boosts. Placement rewards are pretty much out of the question.

Same goes with PvE. Unless I have all the required characters, I can kiss T100 goodbye, let alone T50. Since I have a very weak stable of 4* characters which won't be changing any time soon, I'm pretty much stuck.

I'm usually at least hitting progression in PvE and getting the 25 CP in any given event, but that's not doing much for me right now in terms of adding more roster slots.

I think I just have to resign myself to the fact that my progression in terms of building my roster will crawl to a snail's pace for the foreseeable future. Unless the SHIELD rank and clearance level system will make it easier to obtain HP or get back into T100 or T50 (or better) for PvP and PvE.

DarthDeVo

dsds wrote:

DevilMayGrind wrote:

How about letting us buy ISO with HP instead? :}

You can sort of do that indirectly. Buy tokens, open tokens, sell cover. Keep doing this until you get the character cover you want while getting iso. That's probably how Whales do it.

No, I'm not talking covers, I'm talking Hero Points, which can be used to open roster slots, put up shields in PvP or buy cover packs in various vaults.

There's an option to use ISO to buy standard tokens, which will in turn give your , , or characters. This can be helpful for some people looking to add new characters to their roster or to level up ones they already have, but that's not terribly useful for me right now because if I happen to draw a character not yet on my roster I'll likely have to end up just selling that cover because I don't have enough Hero Points to open a new slot on my roster.

I've hit a point where it's very tough to place in the top 100 or better in either PvP or PvE, so it's seriously dried up my flow of HP. The logical part of my brain said, "Hey, there's a way to use ISO to purchase standard tokens, which may help someone progress in the game, even if it isn't terribly efficient. Why not a way to use ISO to get HP as well?"

DarthDeVo

JVReal wrote:

10:1 sounds much more reasonable than 100:1 or 1000:1.

Roster spots cap out at 1000HP per slot (they didn't used to... they used to continue to increase). 10,000 Iso for a roster slot, I'd pay. 100,000 Iso for a roster spot, no thank you... 1,000,000 iso for a roster slot, never!

At that rate though, no one would ever use actual money to buy HP, cutting off a major revenue stream for the devs.

I know that asking for a way to convert ISO to HP is way more than likely a lost cause for this very reason, but I figure if you don't ask the answer will always be no.