Forum Thread

aesthetocyst

Forum post.

GurlBYE

The better experience is iso poor cover rich.

Iso is inevitable.

Covers are RNG. You could play for the next year and you aren't guaranteed a single cover of black suit spiderman.
Cover rich also allows you to level who you want, if you have them all fully covered.
Cover Rich also supports the champing system.

The two aren't really comparable.

One works off of a resource that comes in one form, one works off a resource that is not only in more than 1 form but also has hard limits.

like my 9th green x force wolverine does nothing but provide, get this, ISO.

while if the covers were rolling in more often, I'd have him covered, and just save up the iso and champ.

broll

Day 293 player just moving into 4* territory.

I have never been ISO rich. This is partial due to my early days in the game I whaled my way up to 90 roster slots in my first month or so. So I was constantly chasing covers and I was so shottgunned out that I never really had an ISO surplus to speak of. Much of my early days felt both ISO and cover starved. That changed to just ISO once I turned the corner to where most of my 3* were getting 13 covers and I was cycling through 2-3 new 3* champions a week.

Currently I'm hoarding ISO, CP, and LTs. I want to hold off on diving into 4* territory until I have a generous amount of ISO and plenty of CP/LTs to get covers. So far I have yet to have to sell a 4* cover and while I know it's inevitable, I'm doing all can to limit that eventuality.

----

I played a steam account for a while (probably 90-180 days somewhere) and on that one I never spent any irl money. That one experienced as the OP said. ISO rich, cover (and HP for roster slots) starved. I quit playing that account not long after my first 3* champion, it was becoming too much to keep up with too rosters and I wasn't enjoying anymore.

Quebbster

Right now my ISO needs are nonexistent. All my 13 cover fourstars are championed, and I am waiting for more fivestar drops from Classic Legends in order to expand my fivestar roster. Thus, I have little need for ISO until I get more covers for my undercovered four- or fivestars.

broll

GurlBYE wrote:

The better experience is iso poor cover rich.

Iso is inevitable.

Covers are RNG. You could play for the next year and you aren't guaranteed a single cover of black suit spiderman.

However, if you are ISO poor and cover rich you will end up having to sell those covers which are much more valuable with their rarity.

Ultimately either side of the coin is rough for different reasons. I personally prefer to be ISO rich and cover starved. That way I never have to sell a cover because I couldn't use it. I'm essentially intentionally cover starving myself till my ISO is in better shape for that reason.

Vhailorx

Since spring 2015 i have been extremely iso poor. I have always had at least 5-10 character with 13 covers and not enough iso to level them.

Pre champion system the problem wasmt that bad because you couod get 80% of the value of a 270 or 166 for half the iso at 220 or 140.

But post champion system the problen has becine dire. Even with 41 3* champs, a full 2* farm, shield rank/cls, and 17 4* champs, my iso gap is larger than ever. I have 9 maxed 4*s waiting on another 3.2 million iso. And several more 10+ covers. Plus all my 5*s fron 1-8 covers.

I do think this is superior to being cover poor. But its not that much better. I am still heavily restricted in terms if how i can use my roster. But one drawback of scaling is that i am generally forced to use my champs to play. I can dabble with some trivial nodes. But champs can be 30+ seconds faster. And in a game that asks for 36-60 matches a day, saving seconds here and there is a big deal.

smkspy

GurlBYE wrote:

The better experience is iso poor cover rich.

Iso is inevitable.

Covers are RNG. You could play for the next year and you aren't guaranteed a single cover of black suit spiderman.
Cover rich also allows you to level who you want, if you have them all fully covered.
Cover Rich also supports the champing system.

The two aren't really comparable.

One works off of a resource that comes in one form, one works off a resource that is not only in more than 1 form but also has hard limits.

like my 9th green x force wolverine does nothing but provide, get this, ISO.

while if the covers were rolling in more often, I'd have him covered, and just save up the iso and champ.

So much all this and I literally pulled my first black suit spiderman since he was first released.

I still have to sell covers regardless, but it would take the sting off of selling a 4/5 if their covers at least dropped at 3 star rates.

And crazy enough, iso sells would go up if the offered reasonable iso bundles. A **** phone shouldn't cost the same as a brand new car.

Alternate experience is that you're cover poor and see zero progression. By default you iso rich and become apathetic that you so covers to spend your iso surplus on.

Kishida

Day 270-ish f2p player, drowning in iso. Opened my hoard (approx. 2025 CP, dating back from when I began the game) on the Purple Reign vault, to little success. Didn't cover-max Thanos, or any 4*. It's fine, it's not a problem. Would I like to have more usable characters above the champed 3* tier? Of course, but I don't think that will eliminate whatever frustrations I experience now. I enjoy the security of knowing that I have access to a crucial resource (currently about 1.9 million) when I'll need it.

Straycat

When I was in 2-3 transition (before champions) I was iso rich for a little while. I would get up to 100k with nothing to spend it on, eventually started buying standard tokens until I pulled a 3*. Sometimes it took 30k to I wasn't playing optimally, I might not have been in an alliance yet or even doing pvp. A couple months ago I didn't need too much iso. I still had unchamped 4s at 13 covers and hadn't leveled any 5*, but nothing was demanding my attention. Now I have 5 fully covered 4*s, and am sitting on covers for 4 of them. I should have hoarded but tried for thanos. I like where I am now tho, cover rich but iso poor.

You just have to be cool with selling covers. Especially now that so many are available from progression rewards. It took a while to get used to selling 3*s, you just have to adjust to being ok with selling 4*s.

Stax the Foyer

If you're ISO-poor, it delays your gratification when you pull a cover, and eventually leads to cover selling as noted above.

If you're ISO-rich, every cover that you pull can be instantly used to upgrade your roster in some way. That seems preferable to me, purely from a play experience point of view. There's already enough randomness in cover earning. This would make the rewards more ... rewarding.

DFiPL

I'd rather have covers than ISO. If covers are flowing, I have two paths to progression: play more, or spend more. Yes, there's still the risk of 'oh noes, I got a cover for a character who has 13 covers but isn't maxed,' and that could even happen to multiple characters at once. Okay. Choices to make: prioritize one character (whom to champion?) or spend some money. May not be a PALATABLE choice, but I at least have some control.

If covers AREN'T flowing, but ISO is plentiful, what I have is a mountain of ISO and nothing to spend it on. Completely at the mercy of RNG, and with no reasonable ability to buy my way past the wall.

ISO is reliable. Covers ain't. Whether the amount of ISO you're earning daily is "plentiful" or "miserly" or somewhere in between, you can still count on it. Cover gain is always going to be more capricious. You can't control which covers (or which colors they are!) come up in Story progression or PVP progression, which means you can't control their usefulness. If you aren't getting the "right" covers, your control over your ability to reach 900 points in PVP is limited. You can't control which 3* covers drop, so you can't funnel covers towards a particular champion reward. You can earn the **** out of Command Points, but you can't control what 4* covers drop from the Legendary Tokens, and you can only spend them on a needed cover if you have at least one rank in that power already.

If I have to choose one or the other? Covers. If they're more plentiful, getting hosed by RNG hurts less, and ISO will come eventually. But all the ISO in the world is useless to me unless I Have something on which to spend it.

Jarvind

I think it shifts from wanting covers early on to wanting ISO later. I know when I first started I was chasing covers like a savage, since without them I couldn't play essential nodes, and of course you can't get very far in PVP on a 2* roster. Leveling characters was important, but secondary to just getting them, and then getting their powers to a usable level, in the first place.

Now I have a solid 2* farm, every 3* champed and twenty-five 4*s champed so I'm never in danger of being unable to field a decent team. My only resource concern is the relatively small amount of HP for shields and roster slots, and ISO to further develop my mostly-covered-but-underleveled characters. The only covers I really stress about are 5*s, and even those aren't a huge concern since playing with 5* scaling and MMR sounds terrible.

Lukoil

broll wrote:

GurlBYE wrote:

Ultimately either side of the coin is rough for different reasons. I personally prefer to be ISO rich and cover starved. That way I never have to sell a cover because I couldn't use it.

like 5-1-1 character that get 6th cover for first ability? yeah right... never have to sell fro ISO that you already have too much...

Current iso/cover flow with intercepts is alright.

GurlBYE

broll wrote:

GurlBYE wrote:

The better experience is iso poor cover rich.

Iso is inevitable.

Covers are RNG. You could play for the next year and you aren't guaranteed a single cover of black suit spiderman.

However, if you are ISO poor and cover rich you will end up having to sell those covers which are much more valuable with their rarity.

Ultimately either side of the coin is rough for different reasons. I personally prefer to be ISO rich and cover starved. That way I never have to sell a cover because I couldn't use it. I'm essentially intentionally cover starving myself till my ISO is in better shape for that reason.

Except that if you are cover rich, they aren't rare.

You likely can't champ them, sure, but you can most certainly earn them again, and the iso is useful to you in that case.

GurlBYE

Stax the Foyer wrote:

If you're ISO-poor, it delays your gratification when you pull a cover, and eventually leads to cover selling as noted above.

If you're ISO-rich, every cover that you pull can be instantly used to upgrade your roster in some way. That seems preferable to me, purely from a play experience point of view. There's already enough randomness in cover earning. This would make the rewards more ... rewarding.

All the iso in the world can't give you a roster good enough for improvement if you are waiting on the rng systems

I figured all the players going from 4 to 5 would see this .

Hell I'm 3 to 4 and I see it.

Even the first 4 star champ covers are already useless to me.

I'm getting so cover poor that I have the iso to champ x force wolverine, however, i have only bumped into green covers in vaults and tokens, and patch's first 4 champ rewards coming, guess what color it is?

The argument to us 3 to 4's is to be patient. the issue is 4 covers don't come with patience, they come with luck, especially with 40+ of them and being leveled out of the metagame for earning 4 star covers in pvp and placement. ISO is something that does come with patience.

Crnch73

I would much rather be cover rich, ISO poor. As many have said, since covers are RNG reliant, you can wait and wait and get nowhere. While waiting for ANY 4* to get to 13 covers, I had actually saved up about 1.2 million ISO because I had nothing to spend it on. However, cover pulls have been terrible for me and I keep getting unusable colors for characters not yet at 13 covers. I could always play more or save longer and the ISO will get there... but I can also play super hardcore and keep getting Ghost Rider red covers (I think I have pulled somewhere around 19 of them so far... which stops me from getting 3* blade to 183 as well). The only reason I actually made it to having a 4* champ was that I bit the bullet and spent 120CP to get a specific cover. Without doing that, I'd be stuck same as always.

TL;DR ISO can be attained easier or by putting in more effort/waiting longer. Covers may never fall your way.

xidragonxi

I guess I'm a 5-star transitioner (one at 450, some others at 9-11 covers)... so right now I'm ISO poor and cover rich. I think this is better. I'm in a position where I can champion almost any character I want, I just have to wait for the ISO to come in. Back when I was transitioning to 4-star land, I sat there looking at my Hulkbuster worrying I'd never be able to use him because he wouldn't be covered.

Punisher5784

Remove the non-sense Champion Tax fee and I would be happy. Championing should simply require the 14th cover, not being taxed 12,500 Iso to champ a 4*.

broll

GurlBYE wrote:

Stax the Foyer wrote:

If you're ISO-poor, it delays your gratification when you pull a cover, and eventually leads to cover selling as noted above.

If you're ISO-rich, every cover that you pull can be instantly used to upgrade your roster in some way. That seems preferable to me, purely from a play experience point of view. There's already enough randomness in cover earning. This would make the rewards more ... rewarding.

All the iso in the world can't give you a roster good enough for improvement if you are waiting on the rng systems

I figured all the players going from 4 to 5 would see this .

Hell I'm 3 to 4 and I see it.

Even the first 4 star champ covers are already useless to me.

I'm getting so cover poor that I have the iso to champ x force wolverine, however, i have only bumped into green covers in vaults and tokens, and patch's first 4 champ rewards coming, guess what color it is?

The argument to us 3 to 4's is to be patient. the issue is 4 covers don't come with patience, they come with luck, especially with 40+ of them and being leveled out of the metagame for earning 4 star covers in pvp and placement. ISO is something that does come with patience.

I see your point now, still don't agree. I do agree with this though:

Stax the Foyer wrote:

If you're ISO-poor, it delays your gratification when you pull a cover, and eventually leads to cover selling as noted above.

If you're ISO-rich, every cover that you pull can be instantly used to upgrade your roster in some way. That seems preferable to me, purely from a play experience point of view. There's already enough randomness in cover earning. This would make the rewards more ... rewarding.

I hate having things pending in my queue, even for a day. If I leave them in for 2 weeks I'm liable to forget to sell them if I get busy so I often bite the bullet and sell them multiple days early rather then risk them going away again getting nothing. I'd rather have the instant gratification/not having to monitor an expiring queue. ISO never expires and there's no penalty for having tons of it, there is for having too many unusable covers.

If the ISO sell price of covers was better it might be forgiving, but with the current ISO to cover conversion I'd much rather be ISO rich.

vinsensual

Asking this while we're still in double ISO week is gonna skew the results. Right now I'm on cloud nine, last week I was down to less than 20k ISO. Either way I would still rather be cover rich. I'm spending HP chasing covers in vaults, not ISO.

acescracked

You guys who say they can't get 4* covers, I don't understand why our game experience is so different. I get 4* covers coming in like crazy.

I have six 4* covers ready to expire because I don't have enough iso to level the 3 of them to 270. I just champed starlord & peggy both from 160. For as long as I can remember, always had over ten 13 cover 4*s needing iso I didn't have. All the players I know are in the same situation. Used to be 3*s & 4*s needing iso. My 3*s are done now.

I hate not having enough iso. Makes me not want to open LTs or burn CP because then it feels like a massive waste when the cover half the time has to be sold. If I don't open then no shot at 5*s. I hoarded once but now no will power, get to 150 cp and start opening.

I've had Invisible Woman at 13 covers for two years! If there truly was a cover shortage then I'd have so much iso...get her done.

P.s. iso flow has greatly improved, but never enough.