Dear D3: 8 questions that will help us understand vaulting

Matt Murdock

Some people still seem to be unclear on the overall effect bonus heroes will have on 4* progression, and how it does not overcome the drawbacks inherent in vaulting every character other than the 12 newest. Let me explain with concrete numbers.

I think its safe to assume that basically everyone is interested in more than just one or two vaulted characters. Here's a short list. I think most will be able to pick at least five which they are interested in progressing.

-Iceman
-Hulkbuster
-Rulk
-Jean Grey
-Cyclops
-Thoress
-Starlord

Keep in mind, this list applies to almost any player. New players want these characters so that they can champ them. Old players want more champ levels, for several reasons. To validate the ISO investment they have made. Acquisition of CP and LTs is absolutely crucial in the mid to late game. To strengthen those characters and increase their competitiveness. For 5* players, this is necessary in order to make these characters which they invested so much time into playable once again. The 5* tier is still small, and even when it isn't, most people will still have few 5* champs due to the difficulty of acquiring them. Thus, getting champ levels is a way for them to (re)broaden their roster and enjoy the fruits of their past labor, rather than being limited to a very small set of characters on their roster, which isn't very fun. Even whales, who already have the vaulted characters maxed out at level 370 are still negatively impacted by this. They probably have quite a few duplicates which they were building up, and if they can't continue to do so, that effort and investment was for naught.

As many others have stated, the game clearly encourages a diverse roster. To me the thing that stands out the most is boosted weeks. To be competitive in PvP, at the very least you need a good set of boosted 4*s every single week. In PvE, not having the best character of the week will adversely affect your clear times in comparison to those who have them champed. Now, some new characters may be able to compete with some of the above listed characters. But only if they happen to be boosted at the same week - and even then they may not be able to compete at the same level. They may even be better too, but the fact of the matter is, most of the best characters will always be vaulted. In fact, this will become increasingly the case as new characters are released. Yes, there may be a couple top-tiers sprinkled in the latest 12. But the fact is there are far more that are *not* in the latest 12, so whether you are trying to cover and champion them, or get more champ levels, you are out of luck.

Now, let me explain exactly why you are out of luck. It has been thrown around a lot that your progression on *specific* characters will actually be better. Well, this is only the case for the very first two characters that you favorite. Beyond that, its a losing proposition in comparison to the old system. Let's say, out of the seven characters listed above, you are really interested in five of them. That's being really generous, for most players it is likely a much greater number. Let's assume you are starting from zero covers and want to max cover them, and for simplicity lets assume that you are lucky and get the proper color distribution on the first 13. If you are a veteran player, just read it as 13 champ levels.

Old system:
There are 43 4* characters in the pool. 5/43 are successes (=11.6% success). 85% chance of pulling a 4* from a legendary. Thus your chance of success on any given pull is 9.8%. You need a total of 5*13=65 covers. Assuming an even distribution across characters for simplicity, you need to pull 658 times on average to finish those characters. If you are pulling from classics that is a total CP cost of 13,160. Staggering, I know. But that is assuming starting from zero and absolutely no progression, placement, and any other kind of reward of those characters. The average hardcore player brings in about 40CP (or equivalent in LTs) per day. So in the best case scenario you could fully cover these 5 characters from scratch, only from pulling, in 329 days. Less than a year for some top tier characters from nothing... that's not too bad - I mean this is a long-term game, get used to it.

New system:
Your only chance to pull these characters is to favorite them. Again assuming starting from zero and that you do not obtain them through any other method (and legendary pulls because any other token is next to negligible). First you need to pull a 4* (85%). Then, you need to pull a bonus hero (5%). The odds of this happening on any given legendary pull are 4.25%. This is your chance of success. It does not matter whether you favorite them one by one, or all at once. The success rate is still the same. So, lets say you do them one by one. At a 4.25% success rate, you will finish the first one after 306 pulls, on average. So doing them one after another, that's a total of 1530 pulls. Assuming classics are used, that's a total CP cost of 30,600. Assuming the same CP/LT income as above, that's 765 days, which is more than double what it was previously.

Now, this situation gets far worse if, like most players, you are interested in more than five of the old characters. In fact, it will continue to get worse as more characters fall into the vaulted pool. Any characters that you failed to get the proper color distribution on before they left the latest 12, or ones that you want more champ levels on, will be added to this list. At a certain point you have to give up on them and accept what you can get. I think 4* transitioners will be okay, in the long run. If they continue champing as many new characters as they can, eventually they will reach an equilibrium with the older rosters, at least as far as having one passable champ every week. But likely this will not be the *best* character for that week, and it may not be the character they wanted either. However, this definitely hurts anyone trying to get into the late 4* game, or anyone who is there currently, as well as 5* rosters. Now, those who largely ignored 5*s in the hope of getting some really strong 4* champs will be forced to focus on one or two of those, and I shouldn't have to point out that that gets nowhere near accounting for every boosted week. Not to mention that their levels will be all out of whack. So the week in which one of their strong 4*s is boosted, they will be on top of the world. But the next week, they will be saddled with higher MMR and a lessened ability to continue to compete at that level. 5* rosters, who were hoping to have playable 4*s every boosted week, will largely be out of luck as well. Now they will have to be resigned to playing only with their 5*s until one of their few strong 4*s comes around. Roster limitation being forced upon you does not sound like a fun option. Alternatively you can select several characters that you want to focus on and be resigned to progressing those at a glacial rate, even by the old standards.

Look, at the end of the day, none of this even takes into consideration a very obvious problem. What if I really like a few of the older characters, and want them to be my strongest? Not because they are top-tier, but because I enjoy the character? I imagine Jean Grey, Cyclops, Ant-Man, and other classic heroes would find their way on many people's list for that reason. What if I have no interest in new characters like Riri? The game forcing you to either select one or two of those characters, and be satisfied with those only, or select more than that and be satisfied with drop rates far lower than under the old system.... That is not a choice I should have to make. Games should be fun. I shouldn't be pidgeonholed into characters I have no interest in if I want to progress (although arguably it will be hard for a long time to make do without most of the top tier characters), or alternatively give up on my progress to get the characters I like.

Clearly I am not in support of this feature. But hopefully I have given enough solid evidence to explain why it will not be beneficial for the vast majority of players. The part I dread the most is blowing the rest of my hoard to finish latest 5*s, and finding myself with a gigantic pile of waste which would have been significantly smaller a week ago.

Fightmastermpq

Matt Murdock wrote:

The part I dread the most is blowing the rest of my hoard to finish latest 5*s, and finding myself with a gigantic pile of waste which would have been significantly smaller a week ago.

Huh? How could you write such a well thought out and reasoned argument and then arrive at this totally backwards conclusion??? You have 26 4*s on your roster that are max covered, but not champed, so 60%. Of the newest 12 you have 7 that are max covered but not champed or 58%. Your "gigantic pile of waste" will be nearly identical. Moreover, should you feel the need to save up enough ISO to champ every waste cover you could draw you'd be saving a mere 2.6M ISO compared to the 9.8M under the old system. "Waste" is NOT a real problem with this new system.

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone is so quick to dismiss this new system when they could spend 5 minutes looking at their own roster and realize that they are really better off in some of the exact areas that they are complaining about.

Matt Murdock

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Matt Murdock wrote:

The part I dread the most is blowing the rest of my hoard to finish latest 5*s, and finding myself with a gigantic pile of waste which would have been significantly smaller a week ago.

Huh? How could you write such a well thought out and reasoned argument and then arrive at this totally backwards conclusion??? You have 26 4*s on your roster that are max covered, but not champed, so 60%. Of the newest 12 you have 7 that are max covered but not champed or 58%. Your "gigantic pile of waste" will be nearly identical. Moreover, should you feel the need to save up enough ISO to champ every waste cover you could draw you'd be saving a mere 2.6M ISO compared to the 9.8M under the old system. "Waste" is NOT a real problem with this new system.

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone is so quick to dismiss this new system when they could spend 5 minutes looking at their own roster and realize that they are really better off in some of the exact areas that they are complaining about.

While that wasn't exactly my conclusion, but more of a sideways comment, I see your point. I didn't want to go into too much detail as to my own situation, but since you brought it up, let's look at the amount of covers I *can* use, rather than the ones I can't.

-Blade (max covered): 0
-Carol (champed)
-Gwenpool (max covered): 0
-Kate (max covered): 0
-Cage (max covered): 0
-Medusa: 2, before I need to champ her
-Moon Knight (champed)
-Peggy (champed)
-Riri (max covered): 0
-Spiderwoman (max covered): 0
-Agent Venom: 1
-Wasp (max covered): 0

So, in total, I can use only 3 covers on non-champed characters. When I get those 3 (which I expect to happen rapidly), my max covered characters in the pool will rise to 9 (all the ones that aren't champed). So after just 3 of the right covers, my waste has already risen to 75%. If they're not the right covers, then they are waste anyway. Why? Because as I said I am trying to complete the 5s. This means that I need to have ISO on hand to champ them. They take priority and therefore none of the 4* waste will be mitigated. This will get worse when Moon Knight drops from the pool because, while I can still use a few covers on Mordo and Coulson, with such a small pool characters, the only real way to avoid waste is to have them champed. Any usable covers on them are quickly pulled and the waste rate rises far more quickly than before. Now, you have made a fair point, that having ISO on hand to champ them would cause the waste rate to fall proportionally quicker than it would have before as well. And in the long term, I agree, this will not be an issue. I was just griping about my particular situation, in which I am already committed to the 5*s, and thus need to keep pulling in a timely manner, but I will not have the available ISO in order to reduce the waste which amasses more quickly in a small pool. Yes, that waste is reduced just as quickly by having ISO on hand. No, I will not have that ISO on hand, but I still need to pull. So in the end, yes, despite the figures you quoted I anticipate having a greater pile of waste than before. That's not a comment about the long-term viability of the system, just a musing about the consequences for me in the short term. I will add, though, that if I were able to reduce this waste I would be forced to champ characters which I may not be interested in as characters. Whereas, out of the larger pool I am more likely to find something that appeals to me as a player and as a Marvel fan.

Pylgrim

kyo28 wrote:

Here's my typical progression, as a semi-casual PVE player:
* 1 cover from the first event a new 4*is introduced through personal placement: sometimes I get 1 cover, mostly 0
* 0 cover for alliance placement as we are a T250 alliance
* 1 cover from the first event the new 4* is featured: 1 cover from progression
* all the other covers come from LT pulls. For that I need CP. I get about 300 CP a month so that's 12 LT pulls a month. That's 96 pulls over 8 months = 128 covers divided amongst 12 4*s = 8 covers average per character
* I get 1 LT extra through DDQ every 10-15 days = 16 extra covers a over 8 months = 1.33 covers per character average
* I don't play PVP hard enough to earn CP or LT's
* I don't have high enough placement in PVE to get additional LT's

So I get 0(or1) + 1 + 8 + 1.33 = 10.33 or 11.33 covers average per new character. And that's counting the maximum of 8 months the characters stays in there.

If that is your level of engagement, have you calculated how slowly would you be covering characters, new or old, when they are 45 (and always counting up!) in the pool? To make it easy and for the sake of the argument, let's pretend that you have zero 4*s and D3 gives you, say, 200 legendary tokens. Presuming an average distribution, you'll end up with 4-5 covers of each character in the game under the old scenario and 16-17 covers for only the latest 12 4*s under the new one. I hope I don't have to explain to you how having the latter characters would make you greatly more competitive and efficient than the alternative, thus increasing your accrual of LTs and CP (and all the other resources) making your progress through the game cyclically better.

OneLastGambit wrote:

I agree with this part. There are good and bad aspects to both system and both system benefit players depending on your roster stage.

Old system - definitely favours established 4* players with multiple champed 4s if not all - due to championing system

New system - Favours transitioners as they can cover characters and move into the 4* tier much quicker - they will just be transitioning into Carol instead of Iceman

Thak you for putting this succinctly. There's a number of players who upon finding a feature that they don't like, they default to a "pfft yet another beneficial feature for veterans and whales, no wonder they are defending it" opinion. This feature is very much more beneficial for newer players and vets defend it because we have been playing the game long enough to realise it.

JVReal wrote:

Since they have a mechanism in place that allows a "Bonus" character to be pulled from a limited, user selected, group of characters... why can't they limit the general pool to be from a group of user selected characters?

You pick your 'favorite 12' that you want included in the pool of characters and your bonus characters come from that same pool. Everyone's pools will be customized.

This would add another layer of complexity and finicky choice to an already convoluted environment. Do you have to choose exactly 12? Up to 12? Then what would stop players to choose only 1 and entirely remove rng from progression? And what would be the point of bonus heroes then? 12 per tier of rarity? etc. I can tell you right away that it would be bad design and contribute more to confusion and/or decision paralysis in a larger portion of the playerbase than it would help meticulous minmaxers to get exactly what they want. And I'm telling you this as a meticulous minmaxer myself.

WalrusGooner

I posted my vitals in the main Bonus Heroes thread, but for the purpose of this post, I'll simply restate that I currently have 19 4* rostered, most with one cover, and a handful with up to six covers.

I'll concede that, following the vaulting change, I will make the 4* transition more quickly because I will have a small stable of usably covered 4* sooner than I would have otherwise.

I'll even concede that friends don't let friends softcap, even if they only play PVE and PVE scaling hasn't been fixed yet, but what the heck, we'll run with it for now.

Here are the things I keep coming back to:

-PVE Featured Characters
-Weekly Buff Lists
-Behemoth Burrito
-(For those making the 2* -> 3* transition, with 1/2 of 3* now vaulted) Dat Required Character

I would list Crash of the Titans here as well, but we have a guide for winning those with low levels, so we'll gloss over that one here. The bottom line is that there are so many facets of this game that previously, and still, reward the player for having a large roster before fully covering characters. With this vaulting change, I do not see how to make this work for me in the long run.

About half of PVE events, I'll have the featured character, and otherwise I'll get one cover for them near the end of the event. So much for placement, though if I'm lucky and dedicated, I'll be able to hit max progression.

With that aforementioned small stable of usably covered 4*, I'll probably also have one good boosted 4* per PVE event, again if I'm lucky, and maybe a second per event some ways down the road.

Behemoth Burrito? Be able to complete it a couple times a week, maybe three or four depending on the particular list from one week to the next.

Not to mention that (as has been much more thoroughly discussed elsewhere), even if I am able to have a clutch of fully covered 4*, their champ rewards would dry up in a hurry once I get them to that point.

All of the above with no pathway to remedying any of these issues in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time.

I get that the meta has changed. I would suggest that it hasn't changed enough for this vaulting to make sense within the current wider structure of the game.

To my mind, the obvious solutions are either partially or fully walking back the vaulting, or making all 4* much, much more available than they have been historically. Without that, I just don't see the game being much fun once I fully make the move into 4* land. I'm still months away from that point, however, so maybe the meta will change again in the meantime. For now, color me unimpressed.

kyo28

Pylgrim wrote:

If that is your level of engagement, have you calculated how slowly would you be covering characters, new or old, when they are 45 (and always counting up!) in the pool? To make it easy and for the sake of the argument, let's pretend that you have zero 4*s and D3 gives you, say, 200 legendary tokens. Presuming an average distribution, you'll end up with 4-5 covers of each character in the game under the old scenario and 16-17 covers for only the latest 12 4*s under the new one. I hope I don't have to explain to you how having the latter characters would make you greatly more competitive and efficient than the alternative, thus increasing your accrual of LTs and CP (and all the other resources) making your progress through the game cyclically better.

You need to look at all facets of the game: let's say I'm a begining player: I'll pull from the latest 4*s and get those to higher levels faster BUT I barely have a chance to get an older 4* and thus miss out on required nodes for those, DDQ levels that require them and what not.
So I have high covered characters faster but my roster is less varied, thus giving me fewer chances to earn ISO and CP faster. Don't forget that new characters take a long while to enter DDQ nodes.

Moreover, in my case I'm not a beginning player but a transitioning player. Your post doesn't address my issue namely that my current progress on the older 4*s is all but completely halted.

Hence my stance: why the vaulting? Why not one or more seperate packs to pull the older 4*s from? At least we can then choose and if I first want to finish up my older ones, I can. Now all I have is Bonus Heroes and I have yet to receive a single 4* bonus hero, despite pullen 20 Latest Legendary Tokens.

D3 was only looking at high level whales when introducing vaulting, that much is crystal clear and us beginning or transitioning players are but cannon fodder.

Crnch73

If we take a step back, the vaulting fixes one problem and creates others.

- We all have to admit, it will be nicer to get more C4rol covers than before. New releases sit dormant on my roster forever, and this will help change that.

- It then creates 2 problems:

1) Any undercovered, "vaulted" 4* will sit as dormant as the new releases used to sit. I understand that the odds of getting a bonus hero are slightly better than the old odds of pulling the same character randomly from a token. But now that I am 99% reliant on getting those characters strictly from bonus heroes, the odds can still be overwhelming. Until the BH system has a guarantee of reward after a certain amount of failed pulls (i.e. a slump buster... I am 0-52 on LT's), it will forever be a wolf in sheep's clothing. A solution to RNG by adding RNG. Maybe we just need to call this merely a "change" and not an "improvement." We essentially stood still and we now need to change our strategy for roster building (which is not a huge deal), but it was sold to us as a great QoL improvement.

2) Champion levels will dramatically slow down, which is fine if they increase the champion rewards. If I only get to add 1-2 levels per year of a 4* champ that isn't favorited, it should be worth a lot more than 1k ISO. The rewards from championing characters have kept me chugging along, with the well drying up, it is hard to think I won't be negatively affected in the future.

astrp3

Matt Murdock wrote:

Some people still seem to be unclear on the overall effect bonus heroes will have on 4* progression, and how it does not overcome the drawbacks inherent in vaulting every character other than the 12 newest. Let me explain with concrete numbers.

Great analysis, but I think it may be a bit incomplete. I think most people agree that it will be harder to level up multiple older 4*s under the old system, but there are some advantages to the new one for new players without any useable 4*s - in particular the ability to get a few of them champed more quickly and thus possibly be able to advance to the next level sooner (I don't know how much having 2-4 useable fours from the latest ones will help and don't know if the benefits outweigh the costs, even for those players and even in the short run - I don't think they do in the long run)

Plus, to be fair, you need to weigh the pros and cons of each side.

Taking another look at the numbers (which I may well be getting wrong):

In the old system, your 658 pulls, assuming even distribution and no dupes for simplicity (yes, the chances of this are virtually nil, but we're simplifying) would actually net you 13 covers on all 43 4*s. The number you are trying for doesn't matter as long as the total number of 4*s stays the same (which, of course, it doesn't).

Under the new system, it would take you 183 pulls (again, assuming no dupes) to get 12 latest 4*s fully covered. At 40CP/day, this would take 91.5 days. We'll round to 90 days for simplicity. So if new 4*s stay in the stores for nine months (assuming two releases a season, 1/3 of which are 5*s), you would be able to get in about 540 pulls, which would net you about 38 covers for each of them ((540*/.85)/12). Yes, you would not be able to fully cover the ones that were vaulted in the first three months (assuming you started with zero, which most probably don't) and the ones released at the end of the nine months wouldn't be covered yet, but you'd eventually get them there.

So 658 pulls (329 days/11 months) would get you about 12 new 4*s champed with up to ca 18 additional levels each, plus 2 or 3 others on the way. Plus your two favorite older 4*s champed. So looking at 658 pulls, it probably seems much better to have 43 older 4*s champed and no new ones than 12 new ones and the two best old ones.

BUT, under the old system, you would have to wait for all 658 pulls (again, assuming no dupes) to get any of your 4*s covered whereas under the new, you'd have 1 or 2 covered in three months, and one or two more the next month, etc. and your favorite older character covered in 5-6 months.

PLUS, under the old system, the number of pulls you need to get all the 4*s covered from scratch gets higher and higher as they continue to release 4*s whereas under the new system, the numbers are the same regardless of how many total 4*s there are (assuming they keep 12 in the stores and you keep your # of favorites the same).

So though it's true that the time it takes you to get all the old 4*s covered is longer under the new system, regardless of how many favorites you have, the time it takes you to get your first one covered is much less if you favorite one at a time. This probably doesn't matter to someone who's already in 4* land, but to someone (like me) who has no useable 4*s and is getting tired of not being able to advance, it might - at least in the short run.

Of course, these numbers are based on getting 40CP/day and for players with no useable 4*s (one of two groups I think could benefit from the new system), I seriously doubt that's true. I am a 3* player and am pretty hardcore and I probably get 15-20 CP/day (and the # would be lower if I weren't champing 2-3 3*s a week).

As I said, even though I have no useable 4*s, I would still prefer that they eliminate vaulting (e.g. by splitting the stores) and don't like the new system in the long run, even if I might benefit in the short run (plus, I might find that the short run benefits don’t even turn out to be benefits).

SUMMARY for players with no 4*s (for advancing 4*s to higher levels, I think the old system is clearly better)
NOTE: this is all probably completely inaccurate, since I probably got something wrong or left something out.

Old System:

658 pulls (no dupes) gets you all 43 old 4*s fully covered, which takes ca 11 months at 40CP/month (if no new 4*s were added) BUT you have to wait for all 658 pulls to get them there and the # of pulls needed increases as more 4*s are added.

New System:

658 pulls gets you about 12 new 4s fully covered with up to ca 18 extra levels each plus your two favorite old 4*s fully covered, BUT gets you your first 4*s covered much faster (ca 3 months) and the number of pulls needed (to get them fully covered only) does not increase as more 4*s are added.

Daredevil217

Pylgrim wrote:

There's a number of players who upon finding a feature that they don't like, they default to a "pfft yet another beneficial feature for veterans and whales, no wonder they are defending it

I think both sides of this argument need to stop saying, "this change is going to be GREAT for [insert population here]!!!", especially when you are not a part of said population, but even if you are.

We've had many newbs, vets, and transitioners talk about hating the change in this and many other threads for various reasons, all of which are valid for their experience. I know there are certain posters here who just want to to throw out the whole "I'm right, you are just too ignorant to see it" vibe, which is not only rude and invalidating, but it does zero to make those players want to stick around.

I just hope we hear something from the developers soon, because it seems to me that there are some pretty easy changes that could be implemented to help everyone.

Even the biggest supporters of this change cannot give one good reason why limiting vaulting to the latest legends, or ending vaulting in the classic legends wouldn't work.