Help a Returning Player Out? Champing and Other Things?

SunCrusher

Hey everyone and hello again!

After a hiatus, I'm back in the game and have been playing mostly like I used to...

Except WOW. Talk about changes.

Can someone help catch me up to speed as to what's going on? It's been some time (around my last post is when I kind of left - probably a month or two later) since I've poked around here and it's difficult to find information re: helpful topics instead of keywords all over posts.

Some possibly pertinent information: I'm firmly in 'building my 3 stars' territory now. The only 2 star that needs building is Captain Marvel who was a new-ish addition before I left. My goal is to collect covers to hopefully evenly build my 3 star teams. I don't necessarily care about speed of building, but I prefer to 'evenly' build if possible.

1) Vaulting System Changes?

It existed already - taco truck included - when I left. Have changes been made recently?

2) What's Champing?

I hear about it all the time and I have no idea what it is.

3) How does Scaling and MMR work now?

Based off of your stars and leveling or something else?

My MMR was questionable when I made the mistake of poking my head into the PvP (which was last recommended as a way to finish my covers).

4) TOKENS EVERYWHERE. WHAT?!

Elite Tokens? Heroic Tokens?! Legendary Tokens?! What happened?!

5) Bonus Heroes!

Same thing. It sounds like a good idea... at first.

6) How best to build my characters and hopefully collect the right covers now?

Previously, I was recommended to participate in the Events - mostly PvP and LRs - to specifically target select covers, but I'm not sure if that's such a good idea now. And also combined with the Vaulting system.

My PvP MMR seemed to go a bit nuts and I'm kind of terrified now of LRs.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

Quebbster

1. Vaulting was dead and gone but returned last week with a vengeance. Right now, there are only 20 Three-stars and the dozen newest four-stars available in tokens. Which ones are available can be seen through the in-game display. The good news is that this makes it easier to focus your effort and build up the characters available in tokens. The bad news is that the other characters are much harder to build up.

2. The champion system means that once you have a two-star or greater character at their level maximum, you can pay a one-time ISO fee to make them a champion. Once they are a champion, you can apply any new covers to that character as champion levels and earn extra rewards. It's quite a nice system, plenty of players have started rotating their two-stars to get the rewards over and over.

3. There really isn't an MMR anymore, you are supposed to be matched up against players with a similar roster in PvP. As for scaling, it is set according to your roster, and the difficulty of a node increases each time you clear it in regular PvE.

4. Elite tokens are basically Heroic tokens light - you can only get two- and threestar covers from them. Legendary tokens give you a four- or fivestar character.

5. The bonus hero system means you can set characters as your "favorites" (marked by the Little heart), and when you get a cover from a token you have a 5% chance of getting an extra cover from the same rarity. It allows you to get covers for the characters that are not available in tokens, or just to focus on your favorites to speed up their build.

6. Participating where you can and getting the covers you can get is probably still the best idea.

SunCrusher

Quebbster wrote:

1. Vaulting was dead and gone but returned last week with a vengeance. Right now, there are only 20 Three-stars and the dozen newest four-stars available in tokens. Which ones are available can be seen through the in-game display. The good news is that this makes it easier to focus your effort and build up the characters available in tokens. The bad news is that the other characters are much harder to build up.

2. The champion system means that once you have a two-star or greater character at their level maximum, you can pay a one-time ISO fee to make them a champion. Once they are a champion, you can apply any new covers to that character as champion levels and earn extra rewards. It's quite a nice system, plenty of players have started rotating their two-stars to get the rewards over and over.

3. There really isn't an MMR anymore, you are supposed to be matched up against players with a similar roster in PvP. As for scaling, it is set according to your roster, and the difficulty of a node increases each time you clear it in regular PvE.

4. Elite tokens are basically Heroic tokens light - you can only get two- and threestar covers from them. Legendary tokens give you a four- or fivestar character.

5. The bonus hero system means you can set characters as your "favorites" (marked by the Little heart), and when you get a cover from a token you have a 5% chance of getting an extra cover from the same rarity. It allows you to get covers for the characters that are not available in tokens, or just to focus on your favorites to speed up their build.

6. Participating where you can and getting the covers you can get is probably still the best idea.

Thank you very much!

The Champing system sounds both useful and fun. So if I were to apply another Red cover to Captain America who's Champed, I'll earn something like additional ISO?

... And Vaulting. Well, I guess it's time to do some more homework and catch up on who's Vaulted or not and how best to redeem at the Vault(s). I'm guessing that the different Vaults operate differently? Like, PvE-centric Vaults contain the boosted or required characters which can still be pulled from normal tokens while the taco truck focuses on characters whose covers can't be otherwise pulled?

I'm struggling a bit with DDQ so the taco trucks have been a hit or miss and with a lot of the token redemptions = ISO. The first two nodes are easy enough in DDQ for example, the third is a hit or miss depending on who's there and who I have and I often don't have Dat Required Character (or I have it but not covered usefully), and so I earn SOME of the rewards including a taco token or two... but not a lot. Maybe I should hoard taco Tokens in hopes that Deadpool will take mercy (HA!) and let me redeem for someone useful?

The PvE-centric Vaults are okay and in all honesty, I really can't complain so far. The more focused nature of those Vaults seem to be helpful so far and EotS netted me some useful covers.

And the Bonus Covers. Does this mean if there's a particular character I want, I should just select them and then later, someone else? Or just select every one that I don't have covers for?

Thanks again!

Magic

Take a deep breath as the changes might be overwhelming.

First tip - you will be getting CP (command points) that can be used to buy covers (no more Hero points for covers) or legendary tokens. I would advise to hoard them. Not sure where you are in regard to your roster but the 4 and 5* you get from them might not be very helpful (and could be harmful).

The best way to get covers if doing PvE. There are plenty of tokens rewarded and many covers are given in progression. Deadpool daily should be done... daily And there is PvP but you need to be able to go to 900 to get 4* cover (and that usually requires a decent roster of championed 4*). Lightning rounds are a playground for mega-players with multiple 5*. The drop rate of covers is lower than it used to be so the LR are now simple - join in the first minute and clear the seeds. When done - forget about it. If you are quick to join you get about 10 seeds good for 220-230 points.

Also make sure you are part of an active alliance (say top250).

Without knowing much about your roster that's pretty much it. Since the characters were vaulted you might want to focus on the ones in the tokens - both 3 and 4. If you need more detailed advice I suggest you open a thread in the Tips and Guides section (roster advice sub-section) and provide details of your roster (3 and 4*, iso stockpile, hero points, etc). That way you can get a tailored response from the vets.

rc35

Welcome back.
You picked a heck of a time to come back, with the Bonus Heroes & vaulting being dropped on us all out of the blue a short time ago!
The only thing I would add is that with a fairly junior roster, I think the only time to go into PvP would be right at the start of a Lightning Round, when there are plenty of seed teams around; at other times, you'll probably be really struggling, so mostly stick to Story/PvE.
Good luck!

Quebbster

SunCrusher wrote:

Thank you very much!

The Champing system sounds both useful and fun. So if I were to apply another Red cover to Captain America who's Champed, I'll earn something like additional ISO?

He'd earn Another level (taking him from level 94 to level 95 or whatever), and you'd get a reward that could be ISO, Hero Points, Command Points, a Heroic token or a specific cover. For Three-stars and above, you can also get legendary tokens as champion rewards.
The rewards are set (for example, reaching level 95 with a two-star Always Awards a Heroic token) and a list of them can be found here.

SunCrusher wrote:

... And Vaulting. Well, I guess it's time to do some more homework and catch up on who's Vaulted or not and how best to redeem at the Vault(s). I'm guessing that the different Vaults operate differently? Like, PvE-centric Vaults contain the boosted or required characters which can still be pulled from normal tokens while the taco truck focuses on characters whose covers can't be otherwise pulled?

I'm struggling a bit with DDQ so the taco trucks have been a hit or miss and with a lot of the token redemptions = ISO. The first two nodes are easy enough in DDQ for example, the third is a hit or miss depending on who's there and who I have and I often don't have Dat Required Character (or I have it but not covered usefully), and so I earn SOME of the rewards including a taco token or two... but not a lot. Maybe I should hoard taco Tokens in hopes that Deadpool will take mercy (HA!) and let me redeem for someone useful?

The PvE-centric Vaults are okay and in all honesty, I really can't complain so far. The more focused nature of those Vaults seem to be helpful so far and EotS netted me some useful covers.

I Think you are getting two different things mixed up here, which to be honest is probably due to forum vernacular. We use the term "vaulting" about the characters that have been removed from tokens, but that is different from the rewards vaults that accompanies most PvE events. Back then Three-star characters were taken out of rotation, rewards vaults did not exist, but now the term can cause some confusion.
The PvE and Deadpool vaults follow a set formula, and it is possible to get characters that is not available in tokens in a vault. PvE vaults have 80 items, including one Legendary token, one cover for the essential fourstar, two randomly determined fourstar covers, Three covers for the essential Three-star, 22 randomly determined Three-star covers, 10 covers for the essential two-star character, and the other 31 being randomly determined two-star covers. The Taco vault follows the same basic model but has 300 items, five covers each for the five featured characters, one legendary token, one set cover for the Crash fourstar and one random fourstar cover. There's also a lot of ISO, HP and Health packs in there.
A lot of players save up their taco tokens until they need something from the vault, then opening tokens until they get it. Hunting fourstar covers in this fashion is impractical, but it can work well for Health packs, HP or covers for the featured threestars.

SunCrusher wrote:

And the Bonus Covers. Does this mean if there's a particular character I want, I should just select them and then later, someone else? Or just select every one that I don't have covers for?

Thanks again!

It's up to you to decide. Personally I set Dr Strange and Thanos as my 3* bonus heroes as they are far behind my other threestar champions and could use some help catching up. If you only have a few bonus heroes it increases the chances you will get those characters specifically.

SunCrusher

mexus wrote:

SunCrusher wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

1. Vaulting was dead and gone but returned last week with a vengeance. Right now, there are only 20 Three-stars and the dozen newest four-stars available in tokens. Which ones are available can be seen through the in-game display. The good news is that this makes it easier to focus your effort and build up the characters available in tokens. The bad news is that the other characters are much harder to build up.

2. The champion system means that once you have a two-star or greater character at their level maximum, you can pay a one-time ISO fee to make them a champion. Once they are a champion, you can apply any new covers to that character as champion levels and earn extra rewards. It's quite a nice system, plenty of players have started rotating their two-stars to get the rewards over and over.

3. There really isn't an MMR anymore, you are supposed to be matched up against players with a similar roster in PvP. As for scaling, it is set according to your roster, and the difficulty of a node increases each time you clear it in regular PvE.

4. Elite tokens are basically Heroic tokens light - you can only get two- and threestar covers from them. Legendary tokens give you a four- or fivestar character.

5. The bonus hero system means you can set characters as your "favorites" (marked by the Little heart), and when you get a cover from a token you have a 5% chance of getting an extra cover from the same rarity. It allows you to get covers for the characters that are not available in tokens, or just to focus on your favorites to speed up their build.

6. Participating where you can and getting the covers you can get is probably still the best idea.

Thank you very much!

The Champing system sounds both useful and fun. So if I were to apply another Red cover to Captain America who's Champed, I'll earn something like additional ISO?

... And Vaulting. Well, I guess it's time to do some more homework and catch up on who's Vaulted or not and how best to redeem at the Vault(s). I'm guessing that the different Vaults operate differently? Like, PvE-centric Vaults contain the boosted or required characters which can still be pulled from normal tokens while the taco truck focuses on characters whose covers can't be otherwise pulled?

I'm struggling a bit with DDQ so the taco trucks have been a hit or miss and with a lot of the token redemptions = ISO. The first two nodes are easy enough in DDQ for example, the third is a hit or miss depending on who's there and who I have and I often don't have Dat Required Character (or I have it but not covered usefully), and so I earn SOME of the rewards including a taco token or two... but not a lot. Maybe I should hoard taco Tokens in hopes that Deadpool will take mercy (HA!) and let me redeem for someone useful?

The PvE-centric Vaults are okay and in all honesty, I really can't complain so far. The more focused nature of those Vaults seem to be helpful so far and EotS netted me some useful covers.

And the Bonus Covers. Does this mean if there's a particular character I want, I should just select them and then later, someone else? Or just select every one that I don't have covers for?

Thanks again!

You get a new reward per new cover you add to a champ. Mostly it's ISO-8, can be a token, and at some point each champ will reward you a 3*, 4* or 5* cover. There's a limit to high many champ levels you can add to a character and on this progress there are 2 covers to earn. A 2* will get you a specific 3*, a 3* will get you a specific 4* and - you've guessed it, a 4* will get you a specific 5*. Once you have a character champed you can view his / her champion rewards from the screen where you add the extra coves.

As for bonus characters, chose the ones you're currently collecting. If you pick everyone as a chosen favorite that's the same thing as picking none: the system will draw a one at random. To control this, select just a few desired ones. Last week I've been trying to collect Blade covers and by selecting Blade as my chosen favorite, each bonus 3* will result in a Blade cover. So I got more than enough. And since I champed him now I swapped my desired 3* bonus dude for Quicksilver.

Wow! I'm not quite there in being able to Champ yet, but... Definitely something to look forward to!

And that's what I kind of did in regards to selecting the Bonus. I have a couple of characters who I'm pretty sure are Vaulted but also need Covers and so I'd like to cover them, but I don't know if that's practical or not. I've been trying to cover Mags for AGES now and I'd just like him over and done with... but he and Punisher who I also need to cover both got Vaulted at the time that I left (and I see Mags at the taco truck).

This seems both useful - the Bonus and the Vault system combined - and kind of frustrating .

Thank you!

Magic wrote:

Take a deep breath as the changes might be overwhelming.

First tip - you will be getting CP (command points) that can be used to buy covers (no more Hero points for covers) or legendary tokens. I would advise to hoard them. Not sure where you are in regard to your roster but the 4 and 5* you get from them might not be very helpful (and could be harmful).

The best way to get covers if doing PvE. There are plenty of tokens rewarded and many covers are given in progression. Deadpool daily should be done... daily And there is PvP but you need to be able to go to 900 to get 4* cover (and that usually requires a decent roster of championed 4*). Lightning rounds are a playground for mega-players with multiple 5*. The drop rate of covers is lower than it used to be so the LR are now simple - join in the first minute and clear the seeds. When done - forget about it. If you are quick to join you get about 10 seeds good for 220-230 points.

Also make sure you are part of an active alliance (say top250).

Without knowing much about your roster that's pretty much it. Since the characters were vaulted you might want to focus on the ones in the tokens - both 3 and 4. If you need more detailed advice I suggest you open a thread in the Tips and Guides section (roster advice sub-section) and provide details of your roster (3 and 4*, iso stockpile, hero points, etc). That way you can get a tailored response from the vets.

Yeah, I think I need to just let it all digest for a while.

and

Before I left, a lot of things were being discussed but I didn't think ALL of these things would happen.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm at the point where random 5 stars would hurt (and probably some extra 4 stars) me so I'll make sure to hoard the CPs. I have a few 4s who are scantly covered who I collected during the Dino-centric Anniversary (and through log-in rewards) and I never leveled them... but also couldn't bear to part with them. X-Force and Devil Dino are two of them. I have a lot of the 2 stars, but they aren't all fully leveled as I've been trying to keep my roster at an even keel and I'm missing a bunch of 3 star covers everywhere.

And LRs? Yeah, okay. I'll skip those save for the beginning nodes.

Thanks for the advice! I think I need to bug people some more about Vault + Build advice and when I do, I'll post in the Tips forum.

Quebbster

SunCrusher wrote:

And that's what I kind of did in regards to selecting the Bonus. I have a couple of characters who I'm pretty sure are Vaulted but also need Covers and so I'd like to cover them, but I don't know if that's practical or not. I've been trying to cover Mags for AGES now and I'd just like him over and done with... but he and Punisher who I also need to cover both got Vaulted at the time that I left (and I see Mags at the taco truck).

This seems both useful - the Bonus and the Vault system combined - and kind of frustrating .

Thank you!

Magneto specifically can be gotten through 2* Magneto's champion rewards, one of each color. His turn in the DDQ is coming up too, so he's probably easier to cover than Punisher.

SunCrusher

rc35 wrote:

Welcome back.
You picked a heck of a time to come back, with the Bonus Heroes & vaulting being dropped on us all out of the blue a short time ago!
The only thing I would add is that with a fairly junior roster, I think the only time to go into PvP would be right at the start of a Lightning Round, when there are plenty of seed teams around; at other times, you'll probably be really struggling, so mostly stick to Story/PvE.
Good luck!

I had no idea.

So I misplaced my iPod Touch about half a year ago and then when I found it, I kind of went 'eh' and didn't do much with it. It's not my phone and so it's mostly used for music and games and I haven't had much time for the games and the music is also on my phone.

But then I decided that it needed to be backed up and when I did it, I saw that MPQ had obviously updated a bunch and so I thought, "Oh hey! Maybe I should come back!"

And then, and !!!

Duly noted on the LRs!

SunCrusher

Quebbster wrote:

SunCrusher wrote:

And that's what I kind of did in regards to selecting the Bonus. I have a couple of characters who I'm pretty sure are Vaulted but also need Covers and so I'd like to cover them, but I don't know if that's practical or not. I've been trying to cover Mags for AGES now and I'd just like him over and done with... but he and Punisher who I also need to cover both got Vaulted at the time that I left (and I see Mags at the taco truck).

This seems both useful - the Bonus and the Vault system combined - and kind of frustrating .

Thank you!

Magneto specifically can be gotten through 2* Magneto's champion rewards, one of each color. His turn in the DDQ is coming up too, so he's probably easier to cover than Punisher.

Regarding your earlier post about me confusing the Vault system, you're right because I really did confuse the two so thank you for clarifying it for me.

I have 2 star Magneto fully covered so 3 star Magneto will be a great incentive to get 2 star to Champed status.

I saw the link earlier along with the rest of your post; thank you (for all of it) and I'll visit it to catch up on the Champs and rewards!

And... wow. So. much. to digest. in regards to just everything!

So glad to have this forum otherwise I think I'd have a mess of things.

MarkersMake

A quick note about champing (championing); you said you had all your 2*s except captain marvel built - I am assuming this means fully covered? Maybe fully leveled? Because if so, they are ready to champion!

Good news! The net cost to you is only about 6k ISO per 2* champion (they sell for 65k ISO + some HP, at which point you can just re-roster them again and start the process over).

Bad news! That means the up-front cost to level and champion a 2* character is about 70k ISO. So, that's a lot of ISO to just have laying around.

Good news! ISO flow has been greatly increased! And if you are on a mobile device, you can watch a 15-30 second ad after some of your PvE matches for free rewards (ISO, tokens, HP). Other than time, there is absolutely no downside here (some day they'll get something implemented for Steam users too).

Bad news! You are going to need a ton of HP to roster all the new characters.

I don't have good news here - you're just going to need a ton of HP.


Welcome back!

SunCrusher

MarkersMake wrote:

A quick note about champing (championing); you said you had all your 2*s except captain marvel built - I am assuming this means fully covered? Maybe fully leveled? Because if so, they are ready to champion!

Good news! The net cost to you is only about 6k ISO per 2* champion (they sell for 65k ISO + some HP, at which point you can just re-roster them again and start the process over).

Bad news! That means the up-front cost to level and champion a 2* character is about 70k ISO. So, that's a lot of ISO to just have laying around.

Good news! ISO flow has been greatly increased! And if you are on a mobile device, you can watch a 15-30 second ad after some of your PvE matches for free rewards (ISO, tokens, HP). Other than time, there is absolutely no downside here (some day they'll get something implemented for Steam users too).

Bad news! You are going to need a ton of HP to roster all the new characters.

I don't have good news here - you're just going to need a ton of HP.

Welcome back!

When I started the game, I figured that half of the fun would be just to see everyone / the characters all lined up in my roster and so if I need to buy into some HP to get me by if I haven't earned enough, I'm willing! To me, it's more cosmetic than anything else as I don't spend HP to buy tokens / pulls. ... Okay, the Dino Anniversary was ONE exception to that rule.

Right now, my 2 stars are fully covered but only leveled to about halfway or a bit more and I have some ISO hoarded up and need to do some math and possible re-planning of how to go about building my roster.

When I stopped playing, I had a major roster imbalance across both my 2 stars and 3 stars in that I had all the wrong and repetitive covers or non-useful abilities attached to the 3 stars I had and so I was sparing when I spent ISO to level.

I got caught in both the 1-2 star transition growing pains - that %$#@ Juggernaut Prologue sitting on all of my Thor and Storm covers - AND the 2-3 star transition growing pains - nerfs, nerfs, nerfs! - and the uneven balancing of my roster was just painful to work with at times. The sparing and more deliberate ISO leveling helped to mitigate that... but only somewhat.

Now that things have changed a bit, I might be able to relax on it a bit more... but I still have a lot of character cover singles just sitting around and unable to do much.

I feel like this is one of those times where my absence will really hurt in the sense of lost time in collecting ISO, but... you're right. I'm on mobile and the ads work and so far, I've been able to get ISO bonuses and sometimes other bonuses, too!

Thanks for the advice; I think of all possible challenges that are going to come up, HP will be the first to rear its head and admittedly, some of it's my fault.

I'm a collector at heart and though I don't have my full 1 star roster (I have to keep at least 1 for the DDQ) anymore, I don't think I've said no to any other character who has popped up over time and as the character numbers grow, so will my roster.

Fightmastermpq

Quebbster wrote:

3. There really isn't an MMR anymore, you are supposed to be matched up against players with a similar roster in PvP. As for scaling, it is set according to your roster, and the difficulty of a node increases each time you clear it in regular PvE.

Tons of great information in here already, I just want to expand on this one point. There is still MMR, it's just a lot more based on your roster, and no longer takes your performance in previous events into consideration. Basically the game separates you from both players with much weaker and much stronger rosters until you (or they) reach a certain score threshold that seems to vary quite a bit from player to player/slice to slice/event to event. For me it seems to open up when I get over 800 pts, but YMMV.

Quebbster

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

3. There really isn't an MMR anymore, you are supposed to be matched up against players with a similar roster in PvP. As for scaling, it is set according to your roster, and the difficulty of a node increases each time you clear it in regular PvE.

Tons of great information in here already, I just want to expand on this one point. There is still MMR, it's just a lot more based on your roster, and no longer takes your performance in previous events into consideration. Basically the game separates you from both players with much weaker and much stronger rosters until you (or they) reach a certain score threshold that seems to vary quite a bit from player to player/slice to slice/event to event. For me it seems to open up when I get over 800 pts, but YMMV.

Yeah, what I really meant was that it is no longer really possible to manipulate your MMR by underperforming in events, but I did not make that very clear. Thanks for the clarification.

Alkyoneus

I wanted to add a bit of advice for you, if you like. It sounds like you're in the 2 -> transition right now, which is a fun place to be; you'll find progress comes quick.

Priorities: Focus 100% on your 2* team. Collect all of them except Bag-man and LEVEL LEVEL LEVEL. If you have to sell off some 4* to roster 2*, do it. Your 4* will collect dust for now anyways. Keep all 3* you get, and use your 2* farm to drive your 3* leveling. Once a 2* reaches level 144, sell it back to the game for 65,000 iso and 125 hp. Once you have that going, then focus on the 20 3* that are available in tokens. Your best bet is to "soft cap" your 3* at level 144 until you have about 10 ready to champion. There are plenty of guides about rankings for 3* and also some guides on team composition.
Play Story mode exclusively, with focus on trying to play Lightning Rounds exactly at the beginning of each event; you'll get up to 10 "seed teams" you can beat for several thousand ISO. Don't worry about ranking or retaliations.
Don't join PvP until the last 30 minutes (doesn't matter which slice you join, just pick on that's ending soon when you have time to play and just play matches until you can't win anymore. You'll place fairly well and maybe earn some 3* covers.

Don't: Spend HP on anything other than roster slots. Spend ANY cp. Cash in Legendary Tokens. Just sit on ALL CP and Legendary tokens until you're completely done leveling your 3* and rostering ALL 4*. If by some miracle you find yourself with enough CP + LT to pull over 300 draws of Latest Legends, pull Latest Legends only at that point and enjoy your 3 fully covered Latest Legendary 5*. Welcome back and have fun!

GreenMachine

You say a lot of your 3* do not have optimal builds? Here's something that I think you'll be interested in.

In addition to providing additional levels for your heroes, once championed you are allowed to freely re-spec your heroes build.

Stuck with a 4/4/5 build that you don't like? No problem! You can freely change your hero to 3/5/5 or any other combination as often as you like.