ISO, we need more ISO !!!!

Polares

Until last week I was in a state of tranquility, 23 champed 4s, 8 champed 5s, and still some 4s not maxed, no hurry in the world. Most of the 4 covers I pulled were useful, and the ones I couldn't use I just sold them for iso.

Now everything has changed. Vaulting arrives and suddenly just 4 champed 4s from the 4s I can pull. I am again super stressed to get iso! Bonus heroes has also helped me champ another 5! (Amazing to pull an IM46 and then bonus another IM46!!!!).

Everybody needs to champ as fast as possible the 'new' 4s, so we can keep opening tokens, and not losing champ rewards. If we don't get the extra iso, everybody will be forced to hoard! I have always thought that the law of the 50% is the best compromise (always have at least 50% of the chars champed before pulling), so I need to champ two chars ASAP, and two more also quite fast because Mordo and Coulson will go in soon and then two of my champs will go out.

We need more iso Devs, we need to double iso events back to back, and SCL9 ASAP!!!!

mpqr7

I am in the same boat. I went from 36 champed 4*s and 11 four-stars at less than 13 covers... to suddenly now I had to champion two four-stars in one day, and now I have three more four-stars at 13 covers that need to be championed asap! I'll probably not be able to do them all before their covers expire... and then I'll be taking a break for a few weeks, so I'll majorly fall behind lol, oh well.

It's good, though. I like the bonus heroes / vaulting change. I'm all for it. It's just a bit intense!

JohnnyBlood

I was just thinking this same thing, and then I got to thinking....just imagine if the ISO flow from a year ago was still current....

Alsmir

Buy ISO with $$

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the idea behind vaulting.

Polares

Alsmir wrote:

Buy ISO with $$

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the idea behind vaulting.

No one buys iso, not even whales. It is too damned expensive. And this is not going to change because of vaulting, people will hoard, sell 4s for iso or just stop playing.

pheregas

Having the exact same issue. My iso income has dropped substantially due to lack of champ rewards.

More devastating is the loss of those HP. I had finally managed to work my way into being HP neutral. Now I am barely earning enough to unlock a roster slot and shield more than once in PVP. It's really making me wonder how much more PVP effort I will want to put in anymore.

Might just go back to a PVE exclusive player.

If they want to keep vaulting a thing (which I really, really hope they do not), maybe they need to add in some legacy characters to a vault. Like whoever is boosted for that week. It could just rotate out. And if you don't like the legacy for the week, just hoard for that week and see who pops up next.

GrumpySmurf1002

I'm fairly certain the iso gap here is temporary (4-6 months?) Assuming you're judicious now about where to invest (i.e. don't spend on Wasp), and shut down investment in any non-12 characters, there should come a point where you can catch up and eventually out earn the releases.

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

Crowl

Polares wrote:

Alsmir wrote:

Buy ISO with $$

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the idea behind vaulting.

No one buys iso, not even whales. It is too damned expensive. And this is not going to change because of vaulting, people will hoard, sell 4s for iso or just stop playing.

While only a subtle difference from simply being too expensive, the glaring issue with iso for me would be how little you would actually get for your money even if you did decide to buy some and it seems like it was set in the 2* era and simply never updated to take account the 6-8x amount of iso required for a 4* or 5* compared with those 2*. It was one of the things that made the previous version of the level up button so obnoxious as it implied that you could buy one lot of iso to level a character, which while already excessive wasn't even remotely true.

Personally, I would never buy the basic currency in any f2p game, it is one thing to support the game with purchases of whatever premium currency they have alongside it, but if a game seemed like it was forcing me towards buying the basic one then that would be me done with that game for good.

blargrx

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

Exactly... the constant grind just got another timer.

Like everyone else, had a few 4* fully covered but was in no hurry bc I didn't think I'd be pulling more of their covers. Now with he vaulting I'm anticipating more covers of those 4* and probably need about 900k-1.2 mil to champion those I have waiting so I don't waste any covers

Crowl

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'm fairly certain the iso gap here is temporary (4-6 months?) Assuming you're judicious now about where to invest (i.e. don't spend on Wasp), and shut down investment in any non-12 characters, there should come a point where you can catch up and eventually out earn the releases.

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

The problem with that suggestion is that people had already spent time and effort to get to the point where they were out earning the new releases when it came to iso, but now all that effort has been drastically diminished since you won't be getting many champ rewards at all and will have to hoard tokens far more often in order to avoid wasting too many of them.

pheregas

Crowl wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'm fairly certain the iso gap here is temporary (4-6 months?) Assuming you're judicious now about where to invest (i.e. don't spend on Wasp), and shut down investment in any non-12 characters, there should come a point where you can catch up and eventually out earn the releases.

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

The problem with that suggestion is that people had already spent time and effort to get to the point where they were out earning the new releases when it came to iso, but now all that effort has been drastically diminished since you won't be getting many champ rewards at all and will have to hoard tokens far more often in order to avoid wasting too many of them.

Right. I am about to have my 35th champed 4*. Now instead of being able to use most of the covers, now it's reduced down to around 30%. Previously I could champ a character in about 10 days. Now it's looking like it might be more. Given that the new character release schedule is every two weeks, that does not give much leeway in earning iso. Heaven forbid that I also want to put any iso into a 5*. My max cover Natasha is just sitting there at 255 so lonely and is likely to keep crying in the corner for those proposed 4-6 months.

Vhailorx

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'm fairly certain the iso gap here is temporary (4-6 months?) Assuming you're judicious now about where to invest (i.e. don't spend on Wasp), and shut down investment in any non-12 characters, there should come a point where you can catch up and eventually out earn the releases.

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

Yeah, the main problem is the bolded statement. This system was advertised to us has "enjoy more choice over your roster!" but the inmeduate net effect is that i am now firced to prioritize champing from a small group of characters selected entirely by the devs (well, forced in the sense that i will pay a very substantial resource/roster progress tax for doing anything else). Yay for choice!

Punisher5784

The 7-day long Gauntlet slog certainly did not help our Iso bank

MissChinch

FYI: Its around 5.5M ISO to champ 12 4*s and 2 5*s... in the worst case...

That's the current hoarding target, put a moratorium on all ISO spending immediately and hoard till you have ~5.5M ISO and like the 3 5*s in latest legends, then pull till you get a 13th cover for the third 5*, or you run out of tokens...

I'll be hoping that there are some significant changes while I maximize my efficiency via hoarding...

mpqr7

I can't hoard any more. I need to open all my tokens for the ISO and XP bonuses! I figure if a few new 4* covers go to waste, it's okay.

Polares

pheregas wrote:

Crowl wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'm fairly certain the iso gap here is temporary (4-6 months?) Assuming you're judicious now about where to invest (i.e. don't spend on Wasp), and shut down investment in any non-12 characters, there should come a point where you can catch up and eventually out earn the releases.

Assuming of course you can currently out earn the releases.

The problem with that suggestion is that people had already spent time and effort to get to the point where they were out earning the new releases when it came to iso, but now all that effort has been drastically diminished since you won't be getting many champ rewards at all and will have to hoard tokens far more often in order to avoid wasting too many of them.

Right. I am about to have my 35th champed 4*. Now instead of being able to use most of the covers, now it's reduced down to around 30%. Previously I could champ a character in about 10 days. Now it's looking like it might be more. Given that the new character release schedule is every two weeks, that does not give much leeway in earning iso. Heaven forbid that I also want to put any iso into a 5*. My max cover Natasha is just sitting there at 255 so lonely and is likely to keep crying in the corner for those proposed 4-6 months.

Devs need to acknowledge that they have basically screwed us with these new vaulting system. Less champing rewards is a big deal!

If they would at least gave us some heads up, like 15 days or a month, so we could have started champing those chars in advance, but now we need to catch up, and sincerily, this 'stresses' me quite a bit.

The very minimum they can do is run some double iso events!

They are basically forcing us to hoard! How is that give more control to players?!?!?

FaustianDeal

I agree with Grumpy. The ISO pinch you are feeling now is only going to be temporary. The cycle is going to add 1-2 new 4* toons every season. If you pick someone at the midpoint in the list (or maybe slightly newer) and focus on champing those characters only, within 2-3 seasons (maybe 4) you will have a large percentage of the 4* toons that are in the tokens finished. And you should have the ISO you need to champ the new ones as they get added.

If you are looking at, for example, Kate and trying to decide if she merits iso - she leaves tokens in 3 days, and then becomes just as hard to get covers for as any other toon in the vault. You would be better served starting at, say Gwenpool, and make your top priority finishing her and anyone newer than her. This will (hopefully) put you on the path to always finishing the new toons before they leave the tokens.

(mileage varies, and where you draw the line on the current list of 12 should be driven by your personal iso earn rate and how many tokens you open in a given season. For some newer players they might need to save tokens till Thursday and draw their line at Coulson/Mordo. A player who doesn't finish coulson/mordo before they leave the token pool should consider a single-season hoarding strategy to see if that gives them the buffer required to finish a toon before it leaves tokens.)

The counter-claim that (by phregas) that your ability to champ a new character every 10 days will be diminished by this change doesn't compute for me. What are you listing as the cause for the slowdown in your iso production that would cause you to fall off your old pace?

Arphaxad

Crowl wrote:

Polares wrote:

Alsmir wrote:

Buy ISO with $$

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the idea behind vaulting.

No one buys iso, not even whales. It is too damned expensive. And this is not going to change because of vaulting, people will hoard, sell 4s for iso or just stop playing.

While only a subtle difference from simply being too expensive, the glaring issue with iso for me would be how little you would actually get for your money even if you did decide to buy some and it seems like it was set in the 2* era and simply never updated to take account the 6-8x amount of iso required for a 4* or 5* compared with those 2*. It was one of the things that made the previous version of the level up button so obnoxious as it implied that you could buy one lot of iso to level a character, which while already excessive wasn't even remotely true.

Personally, I would never buy the basic currency in any f2p game, it is one thing to support the game with purchases of whatever premium currency they have alongside it, but if a game seemed like it was forcing me towards buying the basic one then that would be me done with that game for good.

This is the heart of the ISO problem. ISO is the experience you need to level up your champions. You should not have to buy experience to keep pace with the game. Experience should be earned through regular play. If you play regular, you should earn enough ISO to keep pace with the games progression.

Uthgarprime

Unfortunately Peggy is gone next season. I am hoarding til at least Thursday, thought I would either go on super horde mode or shoot for Medusa and Marvel as my championing starting point. Not a big fan of some of the characters in the vault. Even if I manage to champion Medusa, I probably won't get many extra covers for her before she is gone. Maybe horde til I have the 6 million ISO and 300 plus pulls and start from there to maximize my shot at higher champion rewards. This change just wrecked how I was playing and enjoying things. I was enjoying the game as it came to me, now I am forced to go after certain characters if I want to enjoy the rewards of championing beyond the starting levels.

MissChinch

I agree with Uthgar on the hoarding, somewhere around 6 mill / 300 pulls is the sweet spot, but its also excessively monotonous... Looks like the devs seems serious about fixing it though based on the stickied thread with all the torches and pitchforks... so I'll be hoarding, but expecting things to change long before I can hit 6M or 300 pulls...

Jarvind

Polares wrote:

No one buys iso, not even whales. It is too damned expensive. And this is not going to change because of vaulting, people will hoard, sell 4s for iso or just stop playing.

Man, as long as people keep saying this, I'm gonna keep replying the same way. Somebody must be buying it, or they'd change it somehow. The 99.8% of the players that don't read the forums, use Line, or know what "cupcakes" and "grills" are, are essentially playing a different game from the one you are. They likely haven't done all the math on how much ISO it takes to max a character and so aren't aware of just how horrific the pricing is.

Whales don't buy ISO, true. People who play a grand total of thirty minutes a week almost certainly do.