Do you think vaulting is a good system?

MissChinch

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

Fightmastermpq said:

MissChinch said:

Beer40 said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Beer40 said:

Jaedenkaal said:

SnowcaTT said:

Looks like everyone wins if they had simply used the TRUE solution to dilution.

Increased rewards is not a solution, it's a band-aid. Obviously, it would be an amazingly popular band-aid (among players), but it is emphatically NOT the solution.

Yes, doubling the number of tokens you get (as an arbitrary example) doubles the number of covers you get for your characters (on average). It does not address the problem that, to fully cover a new character (or any character you don't have, for that matter) you will need to pull enough 4*s so that, on average, you get 13 covers for every 4* currently in the game. 

You want to cover Gamora as soon as she gets into tokens? Nowadays that'll take about 156 4* draws, or about 183.5 legendary tokens. 

No vaulting? You'd be looking at 749.4 tokens on average. That's 4 times as many tokens. Doubling the rewards wouldn't have come close (well, it'd be halfway).

Can I ask a serious question here? And I'll put it out there for everyone, not just the person I quoted. Why is there this assumption that everyone wants to cover characters as fast as possible? And why is there an assumption that the player base is more interested in new characters vs old? Is MPQ that big of a competitive scene? I mean, they don't even give away real prizes. I just don't get the rush. Especially since the only way to level up characters is thru ISO, which is always seemingly in short supply. I just feel like this game company never had a long term plan for this game and lucked into a goldmine. They want to keep it running but have no idea how, and the stuff they're throwing against the wall isn't sticking very well.

Their metrics show that people pay money for shiny things.  People like to play with their shiny new toys, and so getting them covered more quickly is preferable.  This is what the metrics that the devs have are telling them.  Additionally, newer players (players with few or no maxed 4s) benefit from champing 4s sooner so that they can compete at a higher level earlier.

People play because it's fun.  Winning is also fun, and so people are naturally competitive - even if there are no real prizes offered beyond in-game rewards.

Ok, so I get the "shiny new toys" aspect. But if you have New Character at 0 covers and Old Character at 0 covers...aren't they both "shiny new toys" to someone? So why push one over the other instead of offering choice? That question has never been answered by anyone as far as I can tell. Granted, I don't have access to the same info as the game company. But I would think the metrics would show by giving people choice, they'll drastically increase their revenue. Like I said, I don't know, but it seems like common sense to me. 

As for the winning/fun part, you're right and I should have thought about that a little more.

If it were just that then D3/Demi would give us options on how to spend the CP or open more stores so I can spend more money on what I actually want...   Theres something more sinister or ignorant going on, I am still up in the air as to which it is...

By limiting choice they create an urgency that encourages spending to obtain things before they are no longer attainable.  You can see this in the 2 week cover expiration period, their refusal to announce sales ahead of time, etc.  This has been their MO for quote some time now - always seeming to favor mechanics that encourage people to spend before they can't anymore.  If you have a choice in rewards you have a choice on spending now or later.  They don't want you to have that choice.  They want you to spend now before you lose that ability forever.  It's not ignorant, it's purposeful.  I won't comment on whether or not it is sinister.

Makes sense, I think they could do it more efficiently in stores, there is money they're leaving on the table by not giving players the ability to cover the retired heroes and the HfH store could cycle through 150 days before that specific cover is available...  meaning a 5/5/0 character could take over 400 days to get to 5/5/3 via the store...  One might actually get that in bonus heroes given 400 days

So I can buy the method, but man does it need tweaked if they want to take advantage of the potential store money to be had...

DesertTortoise

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

I think vaulting is a CP outlet to vintages away from being perfect, but I vastly prefer the current system to the previous one. 

zodiac339

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

I'll start with changes I'd like.
1. Stop calling it "vaulting": The game already has vaults. Any non-release PVE, along with Tacos, are Vaults. If anything is vaulted, it's the contents of a vault. The characters taken out of rotation have been "archived" by the developers, taken out of the primary rotation and put into less frequently used storage. (I know, I know. This was the community's fault, not the developers).
2. Offer the Vintage Legendary store: Many have asked for this. Bonus Heroes is only a partial solution for players needing to build old characters. And archiving means that adding Champion Levels for the archived heroes becomes glacially slow. It doesn't have to be a different price from Classic Legendary. We just need the option.
3. Archive the oldest Epic heroes: Legendary characters aren't the only ones feeling dilution. Archiving Epics would also require the Vintage Legendaries from point 2.

Now, all that aside, archiving has been fantastic for me. With many of my Legendaries already built up and Championed, the number no longer readily available hasn't been an issue. There are some I didn't get to finish yet, but with ISO rate meaning 10 to 14 days to Champ a given Legendary, I couldn't deal with all of them anyway. But the biggest benefit is:
I can make a plan. If pulling from the legendary store meant "1 of 50 different characters", I'm almost guaranteed to not build someone newer. Now, I can have the older characters sit back and wait for events to finish them up while the ISO trickles in. Meanwhile, Cloak and Dagger is at 5 covers, but Hobofist is already at 10, and Mordo is at 12. Everyone else is at 13 covers. Now I can wait for the ISO to get all the ones art 13 covers Champed before making another pull. I could then have a cycle of saving ISO for 2 weeks, then pulling Legendary store until I reach 13 covers on someone, then saving up for 2 more weeks. I also have a current plan of "at least wait for Agent Venom to retire." Doesn't that sound like a nice plan?

Alsmir

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

I don't like it. I hate it, in fact.

1. It pretty much killed a solid 1 year of progress into 4* tier. All those characters sitting at 3-9 covers seem just like a waste of cp.

2. It creates unnecessary tension to quickly cover latest 12. For a semi-casual player - it sucks.
Peggy left the tokens - 6 covers.
Wasp left - 11 covers.
Jessica and Cage are next, 9 and 8 covers right now. Decent chance that they won't get to 13 before another shift.

3. Player feedback and the main, easiest suggestion "vintage (or something) LTs" containing all the 4* characters, ignored time after time, after time.
Instead we got insulting vintage heroics and daily (!) store that offers 1 cover for HP. To make it worse some people can buy it for 2500hp, others for 3600 hp.

The whole implementation and later response to feedback feels like a spit to tha face followed by a kick into the nuts.

Other than that I'm covering a bunch of latest 4*, not sure if quickly enough, though. I'll give it ~4 more months and if I notice that more characters leave tokens before I can cover them, I'll just quit.

(I play almost every PvP till 10 cp reward, most PvE untill at least a 4* cover and some for full progression, currently with a single 4* champion, and my next best 4* is Wasp at 11 covers).

Yoik

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

For me personally I think Vaulting is ok. It has some draw backs even for me and unintended consequences but for me it is fine.

 

I am a long term player 1250 plus days. I already had the vaulted toons covered and champed. I am at a level where I can earn enough iso for toons if managed properly.

 

So all of the above ducks were lined up for me personally to make vaulting not an issue.

 

I believe it does need tweaks. There have been many suggestions but nothing that will comprehensively please everyone.

 

I don’t believe developers intended people to hoard for example. I don’t believe they intended the restrictions it places on some roster or upsetting anyone in the first place.

 

I am new to hoarding which is a direct result of vaulting. I do not want to pull a cover from the smaller pool I do not need. 1.) because I do not have the iso to level that toon up 2.) because its just a waste.

 

The sensible thing is to hoard. In my position that is.

 

Now if they can find a way that I do not need to hoard then I think for me personally the system would be working as intended.

 

Maybe no expiry date on the covers. Some new way of storing covers in our roster that can be utilised later on when you have the iso. Some form of archive.

 

Maybe colourless covers.

 

Maybe swapping covers 2 for 1. Id do that.

 

I think the easiest fix for me would be no expiry date on pulled covers. Granted it still means that in some way I would be hoarding but it would be greatly reduced due to the fact that a large percentage of the covers pulled would go to champ levels of some sort.

Starfury

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

I still don't see how a system where characters have an effective expiry date is supposed to be a good thing.

Nick441234

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

Any system that stops me getting other characters instead is not a good system. 

Fightmastermpq

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

Starfury said:

I still don't see how a system where characters have an effective expiry date is supposed to be a good thing.

It's good because it fixed a system where characters having no expiry date were taking literally YEARS to complete which was thought to certainly be a bad thing.

Starfury

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

I still don't see how a system where characters have an effective expiry date is supposed to be a good thing.

It's good because it fixed a system where characters having no expiry date were taking literally YEARS to complete which was thought to certainly be a bad thing.

Yeah, you can see how well that whole expiry date thing works with classic 5*

We have 80% of the 4* and 5* tier telling new players: "If you don't already own us, don't even bother (unless I'm a 4*, then please pay 1000 hp so I can unlock essential nodes)"

Fightmastermpq

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

Alsmir said:

I don't like it. I hate it, in fact.

1. It pretty much killed a solid 1 year of progress into 4* tier. All those characters sitting at 3-9 covers seem just like a waste of cp.

2. It creates unnecessary tension to quickly cover latest 12. For a semi-casual player - it sucks.
Peggy left the tokens - 6 covers.
Wasp left - 11 covers.
Jessica and Cage are next, 9 and 8 covers right now. Decent chance that they won't get to 13 before another shift.

3. Player feedback and the main, easiest suggestion "vintage (or something) LTs" containing all the 4* characters, ignored time after time, after time.
Instead we got insulting vintage heroics and daily (!) store that offers 1 cover for HP. To make it worse some people can buy it for 2500hp, others for 3600 hp.

The whole implementation and later response to feedback feels like a spit to tha face followed by a kick into the nuts.

Other than that I'm covering a bunch of latest 4*, not sure if quickly enough, though. I'll give it ~4 more months and if I notice that more characters leave tokens before I can cover them, I'll just quit.

(I play almost every PvP till 10 cp reward, most PvE untill at least a 4* cover and some for full progression, currently with a single 4* champion, and my next best 4* is Wasp at 11 covers).

1.)  After a full year of progressing into the 4* tier all you have to show for it is a bunch of 3-9 cover 4*s, and you think that was a good thing?  Now in 36 weeks you should be able to get 12 champed 4*s and continue champing a new 4* every two weeks.  How is that not better?  

2.)  This is a short term problem and unfortunately a necessary evil of the transition.  Once we are in full swing characters will be in the pool long enough for you to fully cover them.

3.)  Bad ideas should be ignored.  Just because the forum doesn't understand what dilution is or why it's bad doesn't mean that we should all jump on this "fix" that effectively just reintroduces dilution in some new or modified token.

Pylgrim

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

It is good in that it achieved what it was created for, which was a real necessity. In doing so it created a few other incidental issues, but those need to be addressed on their own. The system as it only needs minor tweaking.

Wumpushunter

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

my progress getting as many required characters for DDQ and pve story mode has been totally halted. They don't have to remove vaulting in my opinion just stop having vaulted characters be essential or required in any way. Sort of tacky to lock characters away, demand you BUY them from a store just to play some parts of the game.

Bishop

Again, no they need to take the 2*'s out. Dilutions isn't just 4*s its diluted with other useless things for the 4* transitioner it's the 2*'s and the 3's as well. If it was just 4*s in there I'm  sure everybody and there mothers would be praising the vaults. It's just another ridiculous slot machine!

Fightmastermpq

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

Bishop said:

Again, no they need to take the 2*'s out. Dilutions isn't just 4*s its diluted with other useless things for the 4* transitioner it's the 2*'s and the 3's as well. If it was just 4*s in there I'm  sure everybody and there mothers would be praising the vaults. It's just another ridiculous slot machine!

That's not what vaulting is.Vaults are token stores.  Vaulting is the act of removing portions of the 3* and 4* characters from the other token pools (legendary, heroic, elite, etc.)

It's confusing, but this is what happens when devs don't visit the forums and decide to name their new fixed reward token pools (vaults) after a term the players have been using to describe removing characters from tokens (vaulting).

Felessa

Vaulting of some kind should be done, but this particular system needs some major changes to work.

I understand that vaulting can help new players (to cover a 4* faster) and those who are looking to complete the newest characters. The main problem is for those ones (like myself) that didn't think dilution was a problem in the first place. I was happily building my 4*s evenly, as the covers came, in the old system, so, I had no problems with it. Now, with vaulting, my Peggy, Kate and Wasp left the "blessed" 12 incomplete... and I suppose my SWoman will have the same sad fate... I only managed to champion C4ge from the latest so far, and that's not because a lack of iso, but a lack of covers.

They need to create another LT with the rest of the characters, for people like myself to have at least the option to chose from where to pull. BH itself just isn't enough to compensate the loss of +75% of characters from the 4* tier, and the Vintage Heroic Token... well... I will just pretend it never existed, as I already have a good supply of 2*s from other tokens.

broll

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

Fightmastermpq said:

Bishop said:

Again, no they need to take the 2*'s out. Dilutions isn't just 4*s its diluted with other useless things for the 4* transitioner it's the 2*'s and the 3's as well. If it was just 4*s in there I'm  sure everybody and there mothers would be praising the vaults. It's just another ridiculous slot machine!

That's not what vaulting is.Vaults are token stores.  Vaulting is the act of removing portions of the 3* and 4* characters from the other token pools (legendary, heroic, elite, etc.)

It's confusing, but this is what happens when devs don't visit the forums and decide to name their new fixed reward token pools (vaults) after a term the players have been using to describe removing characters from tokens (vaulting).

That's not what he was saying.  I believe (he can correct me if I'm wrong) that a better way to combat the problems caused by dillusion would be to increase the drop rate for 3*s and 4* by removing 2* and increasing the drop rates of 3* and 4*s in heroic tokens.  Make them 3* and 4* only and make it like a 70/30 split.  If 3 out of 10 heroics were 4* and 7 out 10 were 3* dillusion in CP packs wouldn't matter nearly as much, 5* dillusion would be come the focus.

shartattack

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

I would tweak it.  I like the basic idea, and is nice to be more in control of my roster.  I don't love how I am now forced to hoard because i covered the current 12 so fast, and i really don't want to waste covers.  I do disagree with the assertion that the focus of legendaries is the 5 star.  I open legendaries to build my 4*roster.  When i get a Green Goblin or a Captain 5 Star, I think, this won't be useful for years, if ever.

PS: is there a better feeling than getting the 3rd cover to finish a 2/5/5, like my Coulson the other day?

Bishop

Fightmastermpq said:

Bishop said:

Again, no they need to take the 2*'s out. Dilutions isn't just 4*s its diluted with other useless things for the 4* transitioner it's the 2*'s and the 3's as well. If it was just 4*s in there I'm  sure everybody and there mothers would be praising the vaults. It's just another ridiculous slot machine!

That's not what vaulting is.Vaults are token stores.  Vaulting is the act of removing portions of the 3* and 4* characters from the other token pools (legendary, heroic, elite, etc.)

It's confusing, but this is what happens when devs don't visit the forums and decide to name their new fixed reward token pools (vaults) after a term the players have been using to describe removing characters from tokens (vaulting).

Ahh! thx for the clarification I think I'll take an Advil for this headache.

broll

I don't think vaulting is the solution to character dillution - it has hindered my progress in the game. The Devs should persue a completely different solution.

[quote]
Another example of not using the word "dilution" properly.

The 4* tier was not being "diluted". It was being "expanded" by adding to it. What was being "diluted" were the tokens that provided the 4* characters, as the percentage chance to get any given 4* got smaller and smaller, to where it would now be just over 2% per character, if all 4* were still in the LTs. 

Think of it in terms of the wheel from "Wheel of Fortune". Each character represents a space on the wheel. At the start, there were a small number of characters, (say 20, since I don't want to dig through and see what the numbers were at the time of LTs being implemented), so the chance of hitting a given space on the wheel wasn't that bad. You'd need to hit each spot 13 times to finish a character, but since there weren't that many different spaces, the odds were decent that you might do so in a decent amount of time. 

Now, imagine that twice every six weeks, they add two new spaces, make every space a little smaller, and you have to spin the same wheel to finish the new characters. Now they've got almost 50 spaces on the wheel, and every new "space" that gets added still needs to be landed on 13 times to be finished. That's what "dilution" actually is referring to. 

By making the wheel consist of 12 spaces, and when a new space get added, they drop one out, it makes for fixed odds on those characters that have spaces on the wheel. In keeping with the WoF analogy, the spaces may be of different values, but that doesn't change the odds of landing on one. Not taking the characters off the wheel does change those odds, in an ever-diminishing way, every few weeks.[/quote]

Then why does the pro vaulting pro arguing about the semantics of what dillusion is club all seem to say multiple stores don't solve dillusion?  If they had several CP stores that each had the same number of characters and there for the same odds how does that not solve dillusion?

Fightmastermpq

The system is good - it actually allows me to cover characters in a reasonable time and has benefited my roster. (This option doens't preclude minor tweaks to the system.)

broll said:

Then why does the pro vaulting pro arguing about the semantics of what dillusion is club all seem to say multiple stores don't solve dillusion?  If they had several CP stores that each had the same number of characters and there for the same odds how does that not solve dillusion?

They don't - can you link me to a comment where someone was advocating against more tokens?  Dilution is already solved.  Adding more token stores with more options would certainly appease the masses, I can't imagine anyone being against that.