Answers To The 8 Questions About Vaulting (5/2/17)

MarkersMake

New McG said:

MarkersMake said:

Ah you're right. Still, it's 1% for a 4* BH out of a heroic, so maybe 2 or 3  covers out of there. 

Any way you look at it though, by the time you cover her you'll have pulled 200+ other 4* covers. She'll be irrelevant by then. 

And if you're pulling from a pool of 50ish 4*s minus the BH factor (which is where we'd be minus vaulting/BH ever being implemented), you'll likely have to pull 500+ covers to finish her, pending a standard amount of luck. I assume those also make her irrelevant. See where this is going?

You keep responding to me as though I don't think vaulting is a good thing. 

It's possible to be in favour of something, but also to see that there are flaws with it that need to be addressed. 

EDIT - For instance: Carol is pretty great, yeah? So are Medusa, Blade, Coulson, Wasp. They work well together. The new hotness. 

But what happens when they're all out of tokens? 

Because then, people will have to get the next group of 4*s, and if they aren't significantly better than the gen1 (Rulk/Iceman/jean/etc) and gen2 (Carol/wasp/etc) characters, then those players will have a bunch of 4* champs that don't hold up well to the top tier ones, who will then be vaulted. 

And if they *are* significantly better? Well, that's just locking in *necessary* power inflation, isn't it? Darned if you do, darned if you don't. 

There are valid reasons for concern with vaulting, even if you agree that it is an overall positive. 

optimus2861

New McG said:

Oh, various people have made various, thought out analysis posts about how in the long-term, the Latest 12 approach to tokens makes players viable in a quicker span. It hasn't made a difference to those continuing to rage that they can't pull a token for a 2% chance at their 10th Venom cover anymore.

And I've read those analysis, and strictly on the math they do make sense. But it shouldn't fall on the players to have to explain to each other why their real concerns about large chunks of their 4* roster being effectively "frozen out" are akin to "rage". Demiurge dropped the ball big time with their refusal to open another token store that contained the vaulted characters, or even just let the vaulted characters stay in Classics. It would've stopped the "rage" from ever starting, and still left players feeling some sense of control over their roster growth.

And it shouldn't be on the players to explain Demiurge's foul-ups, but sadly that's par for the course with this game's history.

Daiches

People have been glossing over the loss of high-level champion levels and associated rewards. That is also impacted by Vaulting. Do I want Gwenpool quickly becoming my second biggest 4star champ while Cyclops and Ice, etc languish behind? No. I want all my good characters in high rewards zone to increase. Luckily BH sees my HB inching closer and closer to max (now at 349 and 20 levels ahead of Cyclops and Gwenpool). 

broll

Nepenthe said:

Starfury said:

Fightmastermpq said:

They gave us BH to partially help address the issue of accessing older characters, but to claim that not having access to ALL of the older characters is some massive failure of vaulting doesn't make any sense.  Having access to ALL of the other characters IS dilution - the very thing vaulting was trying to fix.

No, it's choice.

You'd be free to continue to pull from the latest 12, while we'd be free to pull from the entire pool, like the morons you keep telling us we are.

THIS. I'm so sick of people saying "but dilution!" when many of us are saying we want to add the OPTION to pick the diluted token.

Jumping onto this as well.  I'm not saying the latest 12 should go away.  I just want an option to pull from the older if that's my preference/what I feel is best for my roster, then I should have that option.  

broll

Fightmastermpq said:

broll said:

Fightmastermpq said:

broll said:

Fightmastermpq said:

I have a dozen older 4s that are max covered but need about 3 months of ISO - similar to your older 3s.  So what is the solution?  You forget about the vaulted characters.  Those older 4s aren't going to add hardly any value to my roster, just like older 3s won't for you.  

That's easy to say when those dozen are probably bottom of the barrel 4*s like Mr. F, Venom, Spider-Gwen, etc.  For those of us who are struggling go get the covers for Iceman, Teen Jean, Thoress, etc. those characters will make a very big difference.

No, they really won't.  There are plenty of characters in the newest pool that are as good or better than the vaulted characters.  Maybe there are 1 or 2 vaulted characters that actually would make a "very big difference" in your ability to compete, but BH can take care of that.  For the most part though the newest crop is good enough to get the job done.

Sure there are.  But when Iceman is boosted and those newer characters aren't, I get a handicap vs vets who already leveled him because he's great character i can't level effectively because the devs hate us and love money.

So what?  You are ALWAYS going to get handicapped vs. vets that have had more time to level more characters.  Vaulting doesn't make that any worse.

Agree to disagree I guess.

broll

MissChinch said:

Average pulls to cover a specific character:

With 49 heroes in the 4* tier:

no vaulting, no bonus heroes: 637 pulls
no vaulting, WITH bonus heros: 260 pulls
WITH vaulting and WITH bonus heroes: 156 pulls

with 66 heroes in the 4* tier (approximately 1 year from now):

no vaulting, no bonus heroes: 858 pulls
no vaulting, WITH bonus heros: 260 pulls
WITH vaulting and WITH bonus heroes: 156 pulls

with 134 heroes in the 4* tier (approximately 5 years from now):

no vaulting, no bonus heroes: 1742 pulls
no vaulting, WITH bonus heros: 260 pulls
WITH vaulting and WITH bonus heroes: 156 pull

Talk about bad math...

With 49 heroes in the 4* tier:

no vaulting, no bonus heroes: 637 pulls (to cover all 49 to 13 assuming no overlap I'm guessing since 637/49 is 13)
no vaulting, WITH bonus heros: 260 pulls (to cover 1 character with BH only assuming you always get 5% and no 5* and no color overlap because 260/20 = 13, 5% = 1/20)
WITH vaulting and WITH bonus heroes: 156 pulls (to cover all latest 12 I'm guessing because 156/12 = 13)

These numbers make no sense, apples to oranges comparisons all over over the place, no factoring in for the multiple layers of RNG.

Fightmastermpq

Daiches said:

People have been glossing over the loss of high-level champion levels and associated rewards. That is also impacted by Vaulting. Do I want Gwenpool quickly becoming my second biggest 4star champ while Cyclops and Ice, etc languish behind? No. I want all my good characters in high rewards zone to increase. Luckily BH sees my HB inching closer and closer to max (now at 349 and 20 levels ahead of Cyclops and Gwenpool). 

This is funny, because in other discussions on vaulting I have spent most of my efforts talking about how **** this aspect of it is.  I'm in the same boat with my Iceman about 20 levels higher than my best 4s which is great.  And once I max him I'll move on to the next, and then the next - but by this point I would have had probably half a dozen or more 4*s at 370 under the old system, and that is a pretty big negative.  The best part of this whole thread is where they acknowledge this problem in the first post.

NewMcG

MarkersMake said:

New McG said:

MarkersMake said:

Ah you're right. Still, it's 1% for a 4* BH out of a heroic, so maybe 2 or 3  covers out of there. 

Any way you look at it though, by the time you cover her you'll have pulled 200+ other 4* covers. She'll be irrelevant by then. 

And if you're pulling from a pool of 50ish 4*s minus the BH factor (which is where we'd be minus vaulting/BH ever being implemented), you'll likely have to pull 500+ covers to finish her, pending a standard amount of luck. I assume those also make her irrelevant. See where this is going?

You keep responding to me as though I don't think vaulting is a good thing. 

It's possible to be in favour of something, but also to see that there are flaws with it that need to be addressed. 

EDIT - For instance: Carol is pretty great, yeah? So are Medusa, Blade, Coulson, Wasp. They work well together. The new hotness. 

But what happens when they're all out of tokens? 

Because then, people will have to get the next group of 4*s, and if they aren't significantly better than the gen1 (Rulk/Iceman/jean/etc) and gen2 (Carol/wasp/etc) characters, then those players will have a bunch of 4* champs that don't hold up well to the top tier ones, who will then be vaulted. 

And if they *are* significantly better? Well, that's just locking in *necessary* power inflation, isn't it? Darned if you do, darned if you don't. 

There are valid reasons for concern with vaulting, even if you agree that it is an overall positive. 

Except the don't throw out all of, or even half the current 12 in one big lump. They go one or two at a time, one or two replace them, and those players pulling in a reasonable amount of 4* covers/pulls should pretty handily cover every new character within the 8-9 month span that they're available. By the time a whole set of 12 rotates out, the overall metagame will have been shaped in a new direction by the newest 12 releases, some of which will end up being monsters, and some of which will certainly stink.

When the 4* GotG releases, that we're now and soon to be competing for, rotate out at the beginning of next year and we're looking at an entirely new set of 12, then the perspective will be there to see how the sets compare. Speculating now about "well, what if they put out 12 terrible characters in a row, how will I compete?" is putting the complaining cart before the complaining horse.

MarkersMake

Do you understand that I'm not talking about myself?

That I have 5 of the current 12 fully covered/champed, and will likely have the rest champed before they become vaulted too. 

It's not about me. It's about what happens to today's 3* player who will have to hoard for about 4 months before trying to transition to 4*s, and what they will go through. 

And I'm not complaining - I'm just saying that even average characters simply won't do, going forward. They will *have* to put some absolute monsters out, because Peggy and Carol are monsters, and they won't be attainable in any reasonable manner. That's a bad place to be, from a game balance perspective. 

broll

New McG said:

Speculating now about "well, what if they put out 12 terrible characters in a row, how will I compete?" is putting the complaining cart before the complaining horse.

Not it's not, not even close.  It's bring up a problem the game will have to compete with.  If people are never supposed to get the best 4* unless they were playing when they were the current 12, then one of two things will happen:
1.  When there are a batch of bad characters come out the new players won't be able to compete (which was one of the stated goals of this)
2.  Or to combat this the devs intentionally make every character more powerful then last leading to a massive power inflation.

If speculating about problems with this system is putting the cart before the horse, then how does is telling people to ignore the immediate glaring problems in favor of possible benefits a year down the line not exactly that?

kyo28

When vaulting was first introduced, a table was drawn up and it turned out that only 2 or 3 of the 20 latest were in the top 10 of all available 4*s. That means the other 7 or 8  were virtually unavailable to beginners.

So how exactly are they able to build a competitve roster?

GrumpySmurf1002

kyo28 said:

When vaulting was first introduced, a table was drawn up and it turned out that only 2 or 3 of the 20 latest were in the top 10 of all available 4*s. That means the other 7 or 8  were virtually unavailable to beginners.

So how exactly are they able to build a competitve roster?

After the top 4 (Iceman/Peggy/RHulk/Carol), there's not a ton of separation between 5 and 25, maybe even 35 since all the rebalancing.  Boosting negates those differences even further. So focusing on just the T10 seems pretty silly, it's quite subjective who belongs in that list.  

Focusing on the macro-level,  Carol, Medusa, Blade, C4ge, Coulson are all above average characters, and Gwenpool/SpiderWoman/HoboFist/C&D all seem to be decent supports.   The other 3:  Agent Venom, Riri, Mordo, I've seen plenty of support for, even I don't personally see their effectiveness.

Sure, a new player will struggle to get Peggy/Iceman quick, but there's plenty of ways to be competitive with the current 12.  

Quebbster

kyo28 said:

When vaulting was first introduced, a table was drawn up and it turned out that only 2 or 3 of the 20 latest were in the top 10 of all available 4*s. That means the other 7 or 8  were virtually unavailable to beginners.

So how exactly are they able to build a competitve roster?

Source please. How were the top 10 determined?

Vhailorx

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

kyo28 said:

When vaulting was first introduced, a table was drawn up and it turned out that only 2 or 3 of the 20 latest were in the top 10 of all available 4*s. That means the other 7 or 8  were virtually unavailable to beginners.

So how exactly are they able to build a competitve roster?

After the top 4 (Iceman/Peggy/RHulk/Carol), there's not a ton of separation between 5 and 25, maybe even 35 since all the rebalancing.  Boosting negates those differences even further. So focusing on just the T10 seems pretty silly, it's quite subjective who belongs in that list.  

Focusing on the macro-level,  Carol, Medusa, Blade, C4ge, Coulson are all above average characters, and Gwenpool/SpiderWoman/HoboFist/C&D all seem to be decent supports.   The other 3:  Agent Venom, Riri, Mordo, I've seen plenty of support for, even I don't personally see their effectiveness.

Sure, a new player will struggle to get Peggy/Iceman quick, but there's plenty of ways to be competitive with the current 12.  

Focusing on the particular merits or flaws with any group of current 12 is a mistake.  By definition the group will always be in flux.  The best way to evaluate this concern is to ask "At any given time, can a player be competitive with a random selection of 8-12 out of all 4*s in the game?"  (And again, it's really important to define "competitive."  For this post I will use the term to mean able to grind 6/6 on all available PVE nodes and hit 900 in PVP.  That's the level of play that will allow anyone to get 4* progression rewards in CL 7+.). 

I would say yes in PVE and possibly in PVP.  In pve having some random 4*s is likely good enough to play all available nodes (it will be impossible to play all essential nodes with just 12, but that is an unavoidable problem for everyone but dedicated vets with every character rostered).  Some weeks will boost the right characters and will be easy.  Other weeks will with offer no boosted 4*s and things will be more challenging, but should still be possible.  On the PVP side of things, 900 is still doable with im40 + a good boosted 4*.  But it's very hard to get 900 with IM40 + an unboosted champ (even peggy or Ice).  Two characters with less than 15k health in high score pvp means lots of attacks coming in very fast.  So when a player has a single, decent 4* boosted they can probably hit 900 without too much trouble.  But if a player only has 8-12 4*s champed, then weeks without any boosted 4*s will be very rough in high score PVP. 

Wjohnson992

Vaulting has flaws but it isn't gunna change. D3 may be supplying the covers to get 4*'s "competitive" sooner but the iso is still choking the chance to become "competitive". The higher in levels a 4* is the more expensive each level becomes.

D3 has enabled players to get the "competitive" level of covers much quicker BUT they have not allowed the player to get the iso much quicker to actually level those quickly covered 4*'s.

Milk Jugz

Milk Jugz said:

What I don't really understand is when I was making the 2*-3* transition there were almost as many 3* characters then as there are 4* characters now (maybe 10 less). But token dilution wasn't a problem then mainly because 3* covers come from many different places (I've pretty much always finished t50 in pve). I think the best answer to token dilution in the 4* tier is not to remove characters from the vaults but OPEN UP CLEARANCE LEVELS 9 AND FREAKING 10 ALREADY AND HAVE THE REWARDS STRUCTURE BE NOT INSULTING TO A 4* ROSTER, I. E. GIVE 4* COVERS PAST T10 ON PVE AND PAST T5 ON PVP. IDK MAYBE T100-250!!! MAYBE EVEN GIVE 5* COVERS FOR T1-5-10!! 4* AND 5* COVERS ARE NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE!!!

When I started playing there were only 2 5* characters and a handful of 4*s, the covers were hard to come by but they should have been there really weren't that many characters on those tiers. But now 4*s are more numerous than 3*s and there are 15 5*s. Rather than taking characters out of tokens, give more away in progression and placement. And what is really irritating is the problem was *almost* solved with clearance levels, but for whatever reason you only went halfway. AGAIN GIVE US CLEARANCE LEVELS 9 AND 10 AND MAKE THE REWARD STRUCTURE APPROPRIATE FOR OUR ROSTER!!!! Then token dilution won't be a problem for us, just as it wasn't when we were making the 3* transition. 

As far as the new player goes, it should take time to get to 4* land!!! It took me a year and a half, this game is a commitment to build your roster up and people that don't want to put the effort or time in to build up shouldn't be catered to. You can't hit 4* overnight (unless you whale, I guess), you can't even hit 3* overnight. This talk about vaulting helping newer people "catch up" is ridiculous. It only helps them get the new characters faster, it doesn't help them catch up to more  developed rosters because they don't have reasonable access to a large number of the characters. 

In summary I think a better option to vaulting is mostly in place already with clearance levels just improperly implemented. With the number of 4* characters out now they should be given out the way 3*s are, but only to the people with a developed enough roster by using the clearance levels system already in place. Why is that so hard?!? 

So I'm quoting myself because I'm REALLY curious on how the rest of the community feels about my idea.

I think the token dilution problem can be offset by opening CL9 and 10, and making the reward structure be appropriate for a 4* roster. To be completely honest I never felt dilution was a problem, or thought about it, until D3 told me it was a problem. I was content opening tokens and getting what was given because I had access to all of the characters. I don't like that I no longer have reasonable access to a large number of 4* characters that I've spent the last year and a half covering, leveling, and champing. Only to find out my chances of having a 4* character over, say, 290 is damn near nil!!

I have received a few bonus hero 4*s since the system was put in place, but I still like my champions have stalled. I champed 4cyke, xfdp, and xfw when sheild ranks came out, because of the 900k+ iso I got at once. They are my highest level 4* still, but the only covers I've received for any of those three since vaulting went into effect is one each from 3* champ rewards, level 223. So from shield rank to vaulting they went from 270- 281, 285, and 286. Since vaulting 1 level. I have all three of them set as favorites, along with a few others. I don't see the benefit of vaulting. I really don't want one level 370 4* when the rest are stuck around 280 so I'm not just gonna favorite one character, so now to build evenly instead of having a 1/48 chance at a character, I have a 1/20 chance of getting a 1/10 chance at getting a character. I like the even build, keeps scaling from getting out of whack. I think vaulting is a horrible short sighted idea and needs to be terminated.

As I said in my first post, they *almost* fixed the dilution problem with clearance levels, they really should have finished one idea before moving to the next.

EDIT: One last thought- tokens should not be THE way to build your roster, playing and earning covers through placement and progression should. The tokens should be a BONUS not the backbone!!!

JVReal

I honestly wouldn't object to vaulting so much, if I had access to a larger flow of Iso to level the characters to minimize wasted covers.  It feels terrible having to sell covers of 4* characters that I know will eventually end up vaulted around the time I can afford to champ them.

Buying Iso is not a solution, and with getting 3 intercepts a week... that is not feasible option.

Jaedenkaal

optimus2861 said:

"If you have to EXPLAIN the joke, THERE IS NO JOKE!" - the Joker.

If the system is better for players, it needs to be self-evident and should leave the player going, Hey, this is pretty great! It shouldn't leave the players screaming, Why the (expletive of choice) can't I get covers for (favourite character X) anymore?!?! Human nature being what it is, players will focus on the significant and immediate drawback and not any theoretical, possibly-realized-in-the-future positive.

But then communications has never been Demiurge's strong point. Ham-fistedness is more like it.

I don't think you'll find anyone arguing that the combination of BH and vaulting isn't a complex system/change. Even BH by itself is apparently complicated enough on its own that not everyone figures it out on their own, and I don't think that's a good thing, as I've mentioned on this forum, on the youtube release video, etc... Even a system that is 100% upside can be too complicated to look good.

I don't agree that "I can't get covers for (favourite character X) anymore!!" is a very compelling argument, though. Bonus heroes basically guarantees that you can, and faster than before. I do agree that vaulting and champion levels are two systems very much at odds with each other, and apparently Demi agrees with this as well, and aren't satisfied with the current 'resolution'. So that's definitely a positive takeaway for me.

BoyWonder1914

Fightmastermpq said:

MarkersMake said:

I have them. But you said you could take im40/peggy to 900. If that's not what you meant then that's not my problem. 

I wish you would rather just read the discussion before you jump in to make some irrelevant point.

The claim was that people need vaulted characters to hit 900 in PvP or T10 PvE, and my response was that no you really don't - and maybe you could make a case for 1 or 2 characters that someone could pick up (e.g. Peggy w/IM40) that would actually make a big difference, but by and large you can get there with the newer characters (e.g. Carol/Medusa/Wasp/Coulson/Blade), and/or set those 1 or 2 characters as BH and get them even quicker.

No, see YOUR argument was that having these characters wouldn't have a huge impact on someone's roster, which is complete and utter ****. No one ever said specifically that they NEED them for 900 in PVP or t10 PVE, don't try to switch it up to fit your argument. I was merely citing examples of what most people would consider "huge impact", and if people like Peggy or Iceman can help someone get there, that's a huge impact.

You said that there are people in the newer 12 that are comparable/better in terms of strength, and thus having these vaulted people won't have an impact. Just because someone switched to the new Meta of CM4/Wasp/Medusa or whatever the combination is these days doesn't mean that people won't still find value in Peggy, Thoress, RHulk, etc. You honestly think you can sit here and tell me that people using a boosted RHulk isn't going to make a difference in these current PVE/PVP events? There is still clear value in people that are vaulted, and they still clearly have the ability to improve someone's roster. It makes ZERO sense that you would call these current 12 and vaulted people comparable in terms of strength, but then try to downplay the impact that the latter group would have. 

Fightmastermpq

JVReal said:

I honestly wouldn't object to vaulting so much, if I had access to a larger flow of Iso to level the characters to minimize wasted covers.  It feels terrible having to sell covers of 4* characters that I know will eventually end up vaulted around the time I can afford to champ them.

Buying Iso is not a solution, and with getting 3 intercepts a week... that is not feasible option.

I just don't think this is a real problem.  Now you only need ISO for 12 characters and you have 8 months to get it before they get vaulted.  There is no way it takes you that long to get the ISO you need.  I can see you have 20 champed 4s, which means that under the old system you needed ISO for 23 characters to minimize wasted covers.  Vaulting has actually helped your ISO needs, not hurt them.