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

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  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    MissChinch said:
    Milk Jugz said:
    GrumpySmurf1002 said:
    Vhailorx said:

    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. 
    Fair enough, but with Medusa/Carol in the tokens until likely late August if not late September, we're looking at a lengthy amount of time where the current set has multiple viable groups that can be obtained quickly.

    PvP is always going to be the strain, simply because 5*s are rampant enough now that anything short of a boosted 4* team is going to get creamed.  At least in this current set, players (in theory) should be able to ramp up faster and get to a point where they have the options to try for 900.  With 50 characters and counting, that transition was (if not already is) going to be overwhelming without doing something to streamline it.

    The people that got caught mid-transition are obviously the ones that lost the most in the deal, as they had to change directions/targets.   How many people that was and whether the masses behind them benefit more from this is something only Demi can really answer.
    Or my buddy that is strictly casual F2P, now when he pulls a LT he doesn't have the HP to roster the new character and can't get covers for the ones he has already rostered. Should he sell the old ones for the new ones?? At his play rate the 4* tier is completely out of reach now as the new ones will be vaulted before he has them fully covered. He only has Spiderwoman and Gwenpool rostered from latest. The other 10 4s he has rostered are vaulted.


    It sucks but this was somewhat a problem before vaulting, this just ensures that people that play less frequently run into it MORE frequently.

    It does however completely screw the person that doesn't pull fast enough to get 13 covers for a 4* before they retire, in that case you could over time champion a character without vaulting, but with vaulting you can pretty much resign yourself to never breaking into the 4* tier.

    Exactly!! Under the old system he would EVENTUALLY reach 4* land but under the new system its out of reach
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Milk Jugz said:
    snip
    Exactly!! Under the old system he would EVENTUALLY reach 4* land but under the new system its out of reach
    Actually, under the old system he'd probably never reach 4* land at that rate, if it weren't for the non-random covers he'd eventually get from 3* champs (which haven't changed), events like Growth Industry, daily resupply, and etc... since it sounds like he's getting 1 4* cover per week at best. That's simply not fast enough to max out a 4* character at 1/50 (and dropping) odds.

    Plus, he'd have been just as likely to end up with his first maxed 4* be someone like Venom or Mr F.
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    Wjohnson992 said:
    1. Its just reading comprehension. The speed of getting the latest 12 to 13 covers has increased rapidly now (YOU happily preach that) so can you really not understand that the rate of covers has increased since vaulting BUT the rate of iso has been unchanged since vaulting. What part of this is too complicated? The 14 day expiry hasn't changed either so wasting covers is made worse now. You get covers far quicker than iso.

    No.  The rate of covers has not increased, the number of 4* covers you pull today is by and large the same as it was before vaulting.  The total amount of ISO required to champ all of your 4*s has also remained unchanged, and so there is absolutely no ISO shortage.

    Perhaps you had an abundance of ISO due to being cover starved previously, but once those covers all came in at the same time that surplus was going to turn into a massive shortage anyway.  How much of a shortage?  Well.....exactly the same amount as it is now since the total cost to level all your 4s is still exactly the same.

    There are now two benefits that you are failing to realize. The first is the ease with which you can allow vaulted characters to just be completely forgotten as you won't even pull covers for them ever.  So previously you might have used a system where you save up 350k ISO and pull until you get a cover that you need to champ, then stop pulling while you save up another 350k ISO.  That still works - there is no change in ISO required to implement that process, but now you only have to do that 12 times until you never have to do it again (assuming you can keep up with the release rate).  Previously you would have had to do it 43 times.  The second benefit that you aren't grasping is the ebb and flow of ISO needs has been substantially flattened.  Hoarding is still a thing that people do and when you cash in a big hoard you end up evenly covering a lot of characters at the same time.  Under the old system it wasn't uncommon to have the final 1 or 2 covers for several characters all coming in at roughly the same time due to hoarding or just plain RNG.  Using your logic in this situation you'd probably make some ridiculous claim that the introduction of a new character or event just caused a massive ISO shortage problem I dunno.  So it's the same "problem" that you think exists now, but the reality is that now you only have to worry about the ebb and flow of 12 characters rather than 40+.  On average it's exactly the same, but if you insist there is a problem that problem is limited to 12 characters rather than 40+.
    Wjohnson992 said:
    2. You have regularly jumped to the defence of vaulting and repeatedly preached about latest 12 being sufficient so you clearly do.

    It's not that I think vaulting is without faults, I'm just smart enough to see the long term benefits for various player-types, and have a firm enough grasp on statistics to understand when problems under the new system are unique to vaulting or were problems all along that just weren't widely discussed.
  • Skrofa
    Skrofa Posts: 388 Mover and Shaker
    4*s buffed this week.
    Carnage, x23, miles, rulk and carol.

    Vaulting has certainly helped me champion 8/12 latest as well as peggy and xfw. Carol was NOT one of those blessed twelve.

    However the game sees me as a multiple 4* champed player and all the teams I see in pvp right now are 350+ level 4* champs.

    Fun fun week for pvp!!

    I was one of the people who got caught in the middle of the 4* transition. Most of my 4*s were adequately covered and I can hope to champ them when ISO allows. Most of them though have 0/5/5 or close to that configuration. Set them as bonus heroes? We all know the odds of getting that third cover.

    The crux of the matter is what many have already said... 
    The faster acquisition of new characters is certainly welcome, but it should not be done in a way that halts progression on the old ones.

    Bonus heroes on 3* "works". We get enough standard tokens that every 2-3 days we are guaranteed at least one bonus 3*. Set a guy, reach a milestone from rewards, move to the next one.

    You simply cannot do that with 4* because not many tokens DO give 4* and those that do, have very low chances. And even when you do get that 4* from heroics, you have no guarantee it will be accompanied by a BH
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Fightmastermpq said:
    Wjohnson992 said:
    1. Its just reading comprehension. The speed of getting the latest 12 to 13 covers has increased rapidly now (YOU happily preach that) so can you really not understand that the rate of covers has increased since vaulting BUT the rate of iso has been unchanged since vaulting. What part of this is too complicated? The 14 day expiry hasn't changed either so wasting covers is made worse now. You get covers far quicker than iso.

    No.  The rate of covers has not increased, the number of 4* covers you pull today is by and large the same as it was before vaulting.  The total amount of ISO required to champ all of your 4*s has also remained unchanged, and so there is absolutely no ISO shortage.
    Well my rate of incoming 4* covers has picked up pretty steadily over the last 6 months, for reasons totally unrelated to vaulting.

    To your point, though, it of course doesn't matter at all how many covers I get and how fast, the ISO required to max level and champ all my 4*s still only increases once every time a new 4* is released, and the rate of 4* releases is still pretty much the same as it's been for 2 years.

    I also question to use of hoarding to avoid drawing "wasted" covers. I don't hoard at all (except to avoid bad DDQ vaults, and even then only for one cycle) and I've perhaps had to sell 5 4* covers in the last 2 months. So I've 'wasted' those 5 draws, but I've been able to use the rest of them to progress. 

    If I'd hoarded all my tokens and CP, sure, I wouldn't have 'wasted' any draws, but I wouldn't have made any, either, so my 4* roster wouldn't have progressed at all (discounting resupply and progression rewards which everyone has the same theoretical access to). And if I only spend tokens or CP while it's "safe" then I'm only progressing a tiny amount, and the tokens and CP that I'm hoarding are still basically wasted.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    Skrofa said:

    Bonus heroes on 3* "works". We get enough standard tokens that every 2-3 days we are guaranteed at least one bonus 3*. Set a guy, reach a milestone from rewards, move to the next one.

    Is that a money back guarantee?  I certainly am not getting a 3* BH every 2-3 days.  I don't think 3* works any better than 4*.  The same problems are still there, just the magnitude and therefor impact is worse for 4*.
  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    Jaedenkaal said:
    Milk Jugz said:
    snip
    Exactly!! Under the old system he would EVENTUALLY reach 4* land but under the new system its out of reach
    Actually, under the old system he'd probably never reach 4* land at that rate, if it weren't for the non-random covers he'd eventually get from 3* champs (which haven't changed), events like Growth Industry, daily resupply, and etc... since it sounds like he's getting 1 4* cover per week at best. That's simply not fast enough to max out a 4* character at 1/50 (and dropping) odds.

    Plus, he'd have been just as likely to end up with his first maxed 4* be someone like Venom or Mr F.
    But it's also not enough under the new system too. And at least with the old system he could still pull covers for the characters he already has rostered. Now that has been seriously neutered and he doesn't want to sell the old ones for the new ones because he is going to have the same problem when they cycle out of tokens. Vaulting/ bonus heroes is a far more flawed system than what I have lined out as a solution using CL. Look for my posts in this thread or my own discussion in the GD titled "Clearance levels vs vaulting/ bonus heroes"
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Skrofa said:

    I was one of the people who got caught in the middle of the 4* transition. Most of my 4*s were adequately covered and I can hope to champ them when ISO allows. Most of them though have 0/5/5 or close to that configuration. Set them as bonus heroes? We all know the odds of getting that third cover.

    Yes, it's 1/3. Same as it was before. Oh, except if you set them as your bonus hero you can expect, overall, to get them 1/20 draws that result in 4*s instead of 1/48 draws that result in 4*s. Any way you slice it bonus heroes lets you cover that one 5/5/0 character faster than before.
  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    broll said:
    Skrofa said:

    Bonus heroes on 3* "works". We get enough standard tokens that every 2-3 days we are guaranteed at least one bonus 3*. Set a guy, reach a milestone from rewards, move to the next one.

    Is that a money back guarantee?  I certainly am not getting a 3* BH every 2-3 days.  I don't think 3* works any better than 4*.  The same problems are still there, just the magnitude and therefor impact is worse for 4*.
    Agreed. I don't see a bonus 3* that often either. Now I have seen far more bonus 3s than 4s, but that doesn't help me as much as the 4* covers at this point in my roster progress.
  • Skrofa
    Skrofa Posts: 388 Mover and Shaker
    broll said:
    Skrofa said:

    Bonus heroes on 3* "works". We get enough standard tokens that every 2-3 days we are guaranteed at least one bonus 3*. Set a guy, reach a milestone from rewards, move to the next one.

    Is that a money back guarantee?  I certainly am not getting a 3* BH every 2-3 days.  I don't think 3* works any better than 4*.  The same problems are still there, just the magnitude and therefor impact is worse for 4*.
    Maybe I was quite generous with my 2-3 day assessment and I only base this number from my own experience... This is how it feels to me at least. And that is why I have "works". 

    When vaulting started I had a lot of 3* under the 183 milestone. Now I have 5 I think, all because of the set, reach and move on tactic I used with the 3* BH.

    4*... I think I got something like 5 4* BH in these two months
    And 3 5* but they are really irrelevant for me now and forever I think
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    MarkersMake said:
    Fightmastermpq said:
    Wjohnson992 said:
    Fightmastermpq said:
    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.

    The iso shortage is worse now. The excuse of "less characters need iso" is irrelevant since the levels of those characters gets more expensive much faster. Any of the theoretical benefit of a reduced character pool is cancelled by the speed of the cost per level increasing.
    Oh, my bad.  I didn't realize it cost more to level the newer characters, I thought all 4*s had the same leveling costs.

    It's a time thing. 

    Right now, in order to keep up with your 4* champing needs, you need to make X ISO per day (40k?). That number is totally achievable. You can keep up with champing 4*s as they get rotated into tokens, even though it might be a bit bumpy to start. We will completely ignore ISO needs for any remaining 3*s that need champing (even though it's completely reasonable for people to begin transitioning before champing every single 3*), as well as any saving up to level/champ 5*s (because that's a long way off). 

    But what if I don't play enough to make X ISO per day? What if I only make X/2 ISO instead?

    Prior to vaulting, it was "hey whatever", right? It just takes me longer to cover my characters, and when I do get them covered, I simply have to wait to champ them until I make enough ISO.

    But with vaulting, I can't do that. If I don't champ them before they become vaulted, then they simply won't get champed, because they'll be removed from tokens at some point.  And then I am left with the choice of either hoarding tokens while I am iso-poor and having characters become vaulted before I can fully cover them, or cashing my tokens in and being forced to sell potentially dozens of covers.

    So yeah, vaulting changed something. Making less iso per day used to simply mean slower progress. Now,  if you are below X ISO per day, it also means either more wasted covers, or fewer champable characters. 

    That's a valid complaint. Not everyone can put in 2-3+ hours of MPQ per day to make that much ISO. And regardless of the specific number of hours it takes each person to make that critical ISO amount per day, the game shouldn't *penalize* you if you don't put in a certain minimum daily play time. Vaulting means that it does. 
    If you don't make enough to keep up with the release rate then none of this matters.  If you can't keep up with the release rate then the number of 4*s on your roster that are not champed will continue to grow indefinitely, and under the old system it would eventually approach your earn rate.  That is to say that if you generate 50% of the ISO needed to keep up with the release rate then over time the number of 4*s you have champed will approach 50%.  With vaulting you get to that 50% number within 12 releases (faster if you prioritize the newer 4s) regardless of how many 4s you had champed previously.  Just like before you would have to pick and choose which 50% of the characters you will champ and which you will discard, that choice will be the same today.
  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    Skrofa said:
    broll said:
    Skrofa said:

    Bonus heroes on 3* "works". We get enough standard tokens that every 2-3 days we are guaranteed at least one bonus 3*. Set a guy, reach a milestone from rewards, move to the next one.

    Is that a money back guarantee?  I certainly am not getting a 3* BH every 2-3 days.  I don't think 3* works any better than 4*.  The same problems are still there, just the magnitude and therefor impact is worse for 4*.
    Maybe I was quite generous with my 2-3 day assessment and I only base this number from my own experience... This is how it feels to me at least. And that is why I have "works". 

    When vaulting started I had a lot of 3* under the 183 milestone. Now I have 5 I think, all because of the set, reach and move on tactic I used with the 3* BH.

    4*... I think I got something like 5 4* BH in these two months
    And 3 5* but they are really irrelevant for me now and forever I think
    I haven't even had that many bh 4s yet and not a single 5 yet...... 2 ice, 1 pun4, and maybe a gr....
    And I get plenty of opportunities, that's not my issue......
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    broll said:

    But if we had the old system and only added BH to it without vaulting, it would be more of an improvement than what we have (or at least have some 3rd or more token set that has the old ones).  
    Sure, 5% more characters that you want, with no other changes; I've never argued that Bonus Heroes wouldn't have been good on its own.

    But that's not the system we now have, so I see no point in comparing either the before system "A" or the after system "B" with hypothetical system "C" Planning for or hoping for "C" doesn't help anyone make the best of what they have.

    I've been thinking of a better way to phrase your treadmill analogy, but it's not a simple enough system or comparison to make the analogy work at all. In terms of keeping all characters rostered, it works, but it's not nearly so dire as you claim:

    Keeping all 4*s rostered on the old system isn't a treadmill at all, it's a sidewalk going up a hill; getting longer all time and going up a steeper slope. You can stop any time you want and you won't fall off, but the progress to get to the end keeps getting harder and further away nonetheless.

    On the new system, keeping all 4*s rostered is a treadmill, yes. It moves at about the same rate as the old system sidewalk lengthens, but it's all flat, so it's no harder the longer you walk/run. If you don't go fast enough, sure, you fall off the end, but it's a reasonably long treadmill so you only have to maintain the pace on average. And even if you can't keep up, you don't get flung off, you just drop off the end. And you can wait there until you have enough energy to keep up with the pace for a while longer, at which point you can get back on. You don't pick up where you left off; the treadmill was still going even while you weren't on it, but it's no -harder- to get back on.

    Anyways, the analogy breaks down when we're talking about leveling characters and championing them, but this is your analogy, after all.


  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah, I'm selling dupe covers like crazy these days. Not even pulling LTS but I'm getting plenty from other tokens, but gotta pull them to keep the 2 farm up and running. 

    But I've champed 6 four stars in those two months. Two vaulted and 4 latest. I have 11 characters that need champing and that number doesn't go down. When I champ C4ge, Riri will that his place, and then after Bl4de, it'll Coulson in that spot.

    I need a double iso week or rewards improvement change far more than a fix to vaulting at the moment.
  • JVReal
    JVReal Posts: 1,884 Chairperson of the Boards
    Jaedenkaal said:
    Keeping all 4*s rostered on the old system isn't a treadmill at all, it's a sidewalk going up a hill; getting longer all time and going up a steeper slope. You can stop any time you want and you won't fall off, but the progress to get to the end keeps getting harder and further away nonetheless.

    Treadmills didn't always have motors.  You could walk, run, stop, and never get anywhere.
  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    Jaedenkaal said:
    broll said:

    But if we had the old system and only added BH to it without vaulting, it would be more of an improvement than what we have (or at least have some 3rd or more token set that has the old ones).  
    Sure, 5% more characters that you want, with no other changes; I've never argued that Bonus Heroes wouldn't have been good on its own.

    But that's not the system we now have, so I see no point in comparing either the before system "A" or the after system "B" with hypothetical system "C" Planning for or hoping for "C" doesn't help anyone make the best of what they have.

    I've been thinking of a better way to phrase your treadmill analogy, but it's not a simple enough system or comparison to make the analogy work at all. In terms of keeping all characters rostered, it works, but it's not nearly so dire as you claim:

    Keeping all 4*s rostered on the old system isn't a treadmill at all, it's a sidewalk going up a hill; getting longer all time and going up a steeper slope. You can stop any time you want and you won't fall off, but the progress to get to the end keeps getting harder and further away nonetheless.

    On the new system, keeping all 4*s rostered is a treadmill, yes. It moves at about the same rate as the old system sidewalk lengthens, but it's all flat, so it's no harder the longer you walk/run. If you don't go fast enough, sure, you fall off the end, but it's a reasonably long treadmill so you only have to maintain the pace on average. And even if you can't keep up, you don't get flung off, you just drop off the end. And you can wait there until you have enough energy to keep up with the pace for a while longer, at which point you can get back on. You don't pick up where you left off; the treadmill was still going even while you weren't on it, but it's no -harder- to get back on.

    Anyways, the analogy breaks down when we're talking about leveling characters and championing them, but this is your analogy, after all.


    The treadmill analogy isn't that bad as you have put it. Problem is that when one of the latest comes off the treadmill they are now stagnant. If you champ them before they come off once they do you have a bunch of characters stuck in the 275 to 285 range. Vaulting kills champ levels
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2017
    JVReal said:
    Jaedenkaal said:
    Keeping all 4*s rostered on the old system isn't a treadmill at all, it's a sidewalk going up a hill; getting longer all time and going up a steeper slope. You can stop any time you want and you won't fall off, but the progress to get to the end keeps getting harder and further away nonetheless.

    Treadmills didn't always have motors.  You could walk, run, stop, and never get anywhere.
    Well a treadmill where you never get anywhere isn't a very good analogy, then :)

    *Removed quoted off-topic comment - Ducky
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2017
    Milk Jugz said:
    The treadmill analogy isn't that bad as you have put it. Problem is that when one of the latest comes off the treadmill they are now stagnant. If you champ them before they come off once they do you have a bunch of characters stuck in the 275 to 285 range. Vaulting kills champ levels
    Demi and I both agree with you that the "vaulting old characters" system and the "championing" system are at odds with each other, and none of us are satisfied with the current state in that regard.

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