How do you define progress?

mpqr7

I'm curious what progress means to you. Whether you are a new player, and experienced player or someone with a lot of championed 5*s, you always want to feel like you're going somewhere and not just spinning your wheels.

To me, I have a few championed 5*s, which is great, and I'm looking forward to getting more eventually. But I won't really state my "goals" as "to get more championed 5*s". Since it's all RNG at that point, I might as well aspire to win the lottery.


So my form of progress is the following:

* Having enough ISO to champion new 4*s when they get to 13 covers.
* Keeping my 2* champion farm cycling.
* My newest project is creating clones of 3*s for my 3* champion farm. I have a few 3* clones at 13 covers, so I'll be able to get those corresponding older 3*s to max-champ, and then start again with the clones. I'll eventually sell the max-champs when the clones are getting close to max-champing.
* Growing my Rhulk to max-champ level. I have him set as my only BH. Once he's high enough (a year or two from now?), I'll focus on another one or two four-stars. Probably Medusa and LC4, since they are both very useful in certain PVE levels.

So that's what I look forward to. As I see my list of 4* champions grow, and I waste less and less covers, I feel better. Some day, I'd love to have a championed Black Bolt.. I heard he's great! But I seriously have no clue how to get there. Even if I set him as my BH, that will only take him to 5/x/x, and then I'll need to remove him from BH to avoid the potential of a 5* BH going to waste, which would be super sad.

smkspy

Level of fun is my marker. Right now with 2 dozen champed 4s, I'm having more fun playing the game than I did this time last year when I was in the process of champing my 3s. The more fun I'm having, the more I "progress."

MissChinch

Progress for me is decreasing the speed I can do the initial 4 clears, and then the last 2-3 clears of a pve sub.  As well as how consistently and easily it is to get to 575 in pvp.

Anecdotally, I keep track of the % of 4*s I have championed, but that's a new thing...  the change to character acquisition changed my whole system up, used to level cap everything and slowly increase the self imposed cap.

Jaedenkaal

smkspy said:

Level of fun is my marker. Right now with 2 dozen champed 4s, I'm having more fun playing the game than I did this time last year when I was in the process of champing my 3s. The more fun I'm having, the more I "progress."

Yep, this is it for me, too.

Warbringa

For me, a casual vet in the upper day 800's, covering a 4* with 13 covers is now progress to me. For me 4* covers is the issue holding me back, not iso. Champing them is nice too but I am being careful with my iso so I could champ a few more now but don't really see the rush atm. I know I will probably never transition into 5* realm as a casual player and the fact the RNG as been okay but not great in drawing 5* covers.  I also will occasionally spend $ on the game but very rarely anymore and usually just for HP once or twice a year at this rate.  

Orion

Each time I champ a new character is progress.  I don't care if that new character is Thanos, Agent Venom or Psylocke, if I decided to champ them I must have had a good reason.  Eventually, I'll have them all champed and then it will be how quickly can I champ the new guy as he comes out.

JackTenrec

My standard of progress is "usable without needing to be boosted".  Even though I've got the new R&G at 1/2/1, I don't think it's a particularly useful character, whereas I've got Carol at 2/2/0 and she can still melt faces (at least in DDQ) with Wasp/Medusa or Star-Lord/Coulson. I'm sad because I was really excited for Cloak and Dagger, but they're currently slot dead weight at 0/2/1.

BoyWonder1914

It depends on my goals, because I consider every positive step toward completing a goal as progress. So by and large, every day that I accumulate Iso, HP, CP, or champ a new character, I am moving my goals forward in some way or another. As of now my current goal is completing my transition to the 4-star tier. But that of course, is the by-product of having completed several smaller goals leading up to this. What's REALLY helped me feel like I've progressed in this game, are the milestones that severely impact your playing experience. For me as someone who left the game with a 2* roster before champing was a thing, some of of these were: 

- Champing all 2-stars
- Fully covering all 3-stars/champing all 3s (none were fully covered, let alone champed when I returned)
- Making 575 in PVP (after being happy with just 300)
- Rostering all characters in the game
- Making t25, t10, and eventually t5 in a PVP
- Progressing to 900 in PVP
- Making t10 in PVE CL7
- Making t10 in PVE CL8
- Hitting full progression in Shield Simulator
- PVE Clear time in under 1.5 hours
- Full Progression for PVP Season
- Place t10 in a CL7/CL8 release event

Doing these things, and for some of them now doing them on a regular basis, I get to feel on a pretty routine basis just how far I've come. It's been just under a year now since I've returned to the game, and as I've said, I came back with not a single champed 3-star to my name, let alone a fully covered one. I'm sitting on 17 4-star champs, and I'm not quite sure when I get to say that I'm done with 3-4* transition. Maybe when I have 27, because then that means I can throw a different 4-star team at every PVE node. The current directive is to keep champing my 4s, and get ahead of the release schedule. It's possible, it's just going to take much more time than it did for my 3s. 

Pogo

I'm still in 3<4, so for me "progress" means "added another roster slot without immediately needing it to save an expiring cover".

Since the goalposts are moved every two weeks, I only actually feel like I'm progressing if I catch the 1000HP in the taco vault. Otherwise I'm just treading water.

I guess that might change with vaulted characters; I haven't added many new slots since vaulting began, but I still need to add enough slots to get a 2-star farm up and running before I can worry about adding more 4-stars. I have 3 expiring this week. I have to be careful with champion levels, because several of my champs are about to award characters that I don't have room to keep, as I'm awarded vaulted 4-stars, I'm less inclined to sell them off.

revskip

JackTenrec said:

My standard of progress is "usable without needing to be boosted".  Even though I've got the new R&G at 1/2/1, I don't think it's a particularly useful character, whereas I've got Carol at 2/2/0 and she can still melt faces (at least in DDQ) with Wasp/Medusa or Star-Lord/Coulson. I'm sad because I was really excited for Cloak and Dagger, but they're currently slot dead weight at 0/2/1.

I've actually been using my level 70 0/2/2 Cloak and Dagger to create black for 4Carol and/or Mordo.  Works really well since most of the time they are hidden in the back from everything but AOE.  One of the rare characters that I use unleveled.  

Progress for me is slowly getting my 3*s to max champed so I can start a farm and finishing off the 4* tier so I can stop hoarding as much.  I feel like I've made pretty decent progress over the last 4 months.  

Borstock

Progress for me is champing 4* characters, and doing it in such a way (read: hoarding and being smart) that I don't waste/lose covers.

I have no desire to ever play in the 5* realm, unless they adjust the scaling system, so they are really the end-game thing for me.

Fightmastermpq

Progress to me is a circle.  It's the ability to place/progress high in events to earn rewards to expand my roster to make it easier for me to place/progress higher in events and so on.

My next progression goal is no wasted covers and I think I should be there within 10 days.  I'll have all 12 of the latest 4*s champed, a 2* farm that is cycling nicely, and nearly all of my 3*s that are at 266 having dupes that are champed or needing covers.  Once I'm there I can take a more serious look at going back and putting some ISO into older 4s or even some 5s that have less than 13 covers.  

broll

I define it based on roster development.  What tier are you primarily operating on, how many champions do you have in that tier, and what are highest levels?

My personal progression I have transitioned fully into 4* territory.  I have 16 4*s champed ranging from 270-282.  Prior to the vaulting change my focus was to champion all 4* (prioritizing top tier characters as best as possible).  Now with vaulting that's changed some.  My current plan:
- Continue champing 4* focusing on latest 12 and remaining unchamped top tier vaulted characters. (I'm currently about 40%-60% through this goal)
- Once that get's caught up I will decide whether or not I continue chasing vaulted 4* or turn my focus on rushing into 5*s. (If SCL based scaling comes out and if they reverse and/or dramatically modify the vaulting plan those will have a huge bearing in that decision)

Straycat

I'm in 4* land, but I wouldn't judge my progress based on transitioning to 5* land. I just want one cover for each power so I can sort of experience the characters abilities, but I haven't spent any iso on 5*s.
Progress to me is hitting my short term goals. I usually have something I'm looking forward to, champing the next 4 before a cover expires or continuing the 2* farm. So breaking it down, progress I guess is just having an empty queue. Currently have 34 in queue, and I'll feel pretty good when I get that cleared

Daredevil217

I think this is a great question.  Progress for me changes constantly.  Big picture, it is simply progressing my roster, which means more champs because I'm a person who doesn't use a character until I champ them.  They go from 70 (or 140 if crashable) to 270, and only then will see consistent play.

So it is all about small goals. 

Currently, I'm iso-starved in large part due to the pressure to champ that has accompanied vaulting.  So, little picture progress would be:
- GET ISO!
- Then repair the damage done to the 2* Farm (about halfway there).
- GET ISO!
- So I can afford to champ 3-Lord

[By this time hopefully Wasp (champed) and Cage (12 covers) leave tokens in favor of Grocket and Gamora (both of whom are pretty awesome and use Blue which my 17 champs are lacking)]

- GET ISO!
- So I can afford to pull 4* again.

So right now... lots of hoarding happening.  I have...

9.625 hero points (and essentially three open roster spots)
742 command points
285 standard tokens
325 elite tokens
47 heroic tokens
8 latest legends tokens
35 savory and 26 sweet tokens
51 random event tokens.

jredd

finding another game more worthy of my time...

f'real though. every thing i pull is pretty much the lowest common denominator of what is available. i started hoarding everything, even standards, cause it's all garbage. it was getting frustrating pulling 2* after 2* after 1* after 2* from all tokens. honestly, the game is a bit more fun when you're not pulling garbage all day and just play.

did i mention pulling covers = garbage? yeah.

mpqr7

@jredd you gotta start a 2* champion farm. Then you won't completely hate getting 2* covers quite as much.

Calnexin

I think about progress from the other side - when am I not making significant progress?  

Technically every token pull and match reward is progress.  The net value of your account goes up by some amount of Iso, covers, hp, or cp.  The only time you actually lose progress is when you lose rank between shields.  Then you've spent HP to get a worse reward.  Same if you break a shield and don't hit a progression reward or improve your placement tier.  The tiny amount of Iso isn't worth the HP expenditure.

More viscerally, I think of progress as gradually improving my average placement, which requires speedier matches in both PvE and PvP.  PvP is just raw levels in the characters that happen to be boosted.  PvE requires balance to keep scaling low, resulting in faster completions.

About half the newest characters are antithetical to speed with their constant reactive and automatic animations.  In one of my worst matches last week I literally sat for over a minute for one opponent's turn to resolve.  Up-front animation, match, reaction, cascade to match-5, reaction on both sides, cascade, reaction.  I managed a short nap during the wait.

crackninja

Progress for me is hitting my targets day after day, week after week.  Deadpool daily, pve max progression, pvp 575, sim to 2k.  I only have 7 4* champs and I'm fresh out of iso, so there's not much I can do except gather resources.  Some day 6 months+ from now it will all pay off.
I keep myself amused with my 2* farm and maxing im40 but I don't view that as progress really.

Pessi

Progress for me is not opening tokens when I have one. I fail every single time.

Jarvind

Well it used to be new champions, though now that I'm having to level and champ dupe 3*s to avoid wasting covers it feels more like a long term investment than real progress.

Fourstar champs are a bit less meaningful than they once were since I've got around 40 now, and the knowledge that they will be virtually stuck where they are once they rotate out of packs makes it a little less enjoyable.

I did recently get 13 covers on Thanos, making him my second fully covered 5* (OML was the first). Just gotta save up another 400k ISO so I can champ them both and wade face-first into the 5* slaughterdome. So I guess that's a pretty big milestone.