Vaulting and its fallout are still significant issues in the game. . .

Eddiemon · June 2017

How about contributing something logical yourself?

Under the new system you can cover and champ an Iceman by setting him as a bonus hero and getting him 1 time in 20 on tokens. Under the old system you would have a 1 in 40something chance of pulling him. It would take over twice as long just going by random token pulls.

If your goal is to cover and champ Iceman the new system is far more preferable to the old system.

And no, having a pool of 4 stars that are focused on is great for the long term health of the system because transitioners can champ characters in a fraction of the time without needing 40 roster slots to catch random covers across the whole range.

You can call out someone for myopic solutions, but you haven't actually defined a problem yet, just pointed out the things that vaulting dors BETTER than the old way and called them problems.

Pants1000 · June 2017

I am a 4* player. I had about 20 champed when vaulting began, and I've added 14 since then. If it weren't for vaulting, I would have champed the same number, but it would have been different ones.

The biggest affect vaulting had on me was that I basically had to hoard for a month. I was at the point where I had 6 of the latest fully covered but no ISO, so it was either hoard or waste half of my pulls. I got past that and I now have 10/12 champed, with Groot and C&D at 12 covers. I'm able to earn ISO faster than the release cycle, so soon I'll have "extra" to spend on vaulted 4's or on 5's, and the only time I have to sell a cover now is from lopsided RNG.

Overall I probably benefitted more from vaulting than it hurt, but there are frustrating parts, like seeing characters at 271-272 that I champed the month before vaulting.

I wouldn't want to go back to the old system, just add some more ways to earn (not buy) more vaulted 4's. That could be increased event rewards, CL9/10, increased bonus hero rate, daily 4* from DDQ, etc.

Alsmir · June 2017

3x 4* champs so far. Cage, Cyclops, Punisher. Cyclops and Punisher started at 8 covers when vaulting was introduced. I used 120 cp to finally finish Cyclops - it sucked. I had Punisher at 3/5/4 and pulled 3 useless covers in a row from BH, then I decided to spend 120cp to finish him.

I'm at 12 covers for Riri, Mordo, Spider Woman. I have no intention of champing them at all. In the meantime I'm getting destroyed by Rulks, Jeans, Peggys and various boosted vaulted 4*.
I can cover 1 usefull hero at the time with bh, at low rate. I might need another 2-3 months to cover Peggy, that is at 6 covers right now.
My progress on vaulted 4* is almost non-existant. All the covers I've pulled for them before are almost useless, but I'm sure getting plenty of covers for Sentry-level characters.

9x 4* BH so far
0 5* BH

Getting 10cp from every PvP and full progression in ~75% of available PvEs.

DarthDeVo · June 2017

I think I had every 3* character champed or close to it and every 4* character at least rostered when vaulting hit. My highest covered 4* was maybe somewhere in the 8-10 cover range, but most were in the absolutely useless 1-3 range.

Since vaulting, I've champed 11 4*s, including eight of the Current 12. Clagger's at 10, Coulson and G4mora are at eight and G4ocket is at seven.

On the one hand, there's no way I would have this many champs without vaulting, so I am thankful for that. But on the other, it's creating a very lopsided roster, even at the 3* level. Hood is still at level 177, while IM40 blasted off to Level 233, a spread of 56 levels.

While I don't think going back to the full dilution we had before is the right way to go, we desperately need better access to the vaulted 4*s somehow.

I won't say Bonus Heroes has been unhelpful, especially at the 3* tier, but beyond that it hasn't been too kind. I'm sure it works great if you're in a buy club and literally opening dozens—if not hundreds—of tokens a week. Myself, I believe I've gotten about six or seven at the 4* tier and two or three at the 5* tier since the system was implemented, and I've only got one BH marked at each tier to maximize covers drawn.

Plenty of suggestions have been offered here and elsewhere for increasing the opportunity to have access to those vaulted 4*. Additional tokens seem to be a popular choice that could work well. Yes, there will be inherent dilution, but it's at least giving us that choice if that's an avenue we may want to pursue for whatever reason.

Personally for me, my roster is still thin when it comes to having reliable options for the weekly buffs which can make or break PvE but especially PvP. Maybe I would like to gamble and try to bump up some of my poorly covered 4*s. Or take Crash of the Titans. I had a particularly dry spell for the past several events, mostly because there was a run of older 4* characters who I don't have covered well. If I could get them into shape to win the Crash, that's another LT that will help grow my roster in other areas.

So please strongly consider a way for us to at least have access to the vaulted characters, even if it is at the mercy of RNG. The Vintage Heroic would have been perfect without the 2*s and a 75/25 split between 3*s and 4*s. Heck, add some older 5*s to it and make the split 75/20/5.

SpringSoldier · June 2017

I'm currently transitioning to 4*. I started playing before vaulting so I have plenty of characters older characters sitting at 1-5 covers. Progress was slow, but I accepted it and just played with my 3*. Getting hp for the new rooster spots was and still is my biggest drawback.

I know a diluted vault wouldn't be making me competitive; I realize it takes a lot more to cover and champ each character, but IT DOESN'T MATTER TO ME! I play this game because I'm an obsessive hoarder who likes puzzle games and I want CERTAIN characters. Is Iceman cool? Sure, but I don't like his looks and I think his character was always dull, so I don't care much about covering him. I'm not a competitive person, I don't care about being in the top whatever, I just want my favorite characters to reach a playable level at some point so I can defeat the goons in PVE with them and play all the DDQ ever.

I do understand that others are not this way though and they do want strong characters quickly, this is why the latest characters should be offered in a non-diluted token for them. I don't want anything taken out of the game, I want a new token (with cp!; I'm hardly getting enough hp for rooster spots, I'm not wasting them on some Vintage Heroic tinykitty!) with the diluted old 4* and everyone can choose what they buy. It's the only system I can think of that's fair to everyone. That and rotating vaults maybe, but I find that to be a more complicated solution.

kaelad · June 2017

I was about to start the 4* transition when vaulting was implemented. I was hoarding my CP since I was finishing my 3* characters and figured that was best so I didn't spend ISO on champing a 4* to avoid loosing covers. I am torn on vaulting. I understand it would help me champion the newer characters quicker instead of slowly champing all the 4*. On the other hand, I do have some classic 4*s with a usable number of covers that will be very hard to champion, so it seems like a waste of ISO to level them. Even with a few covers, I've played with quite a few of the classic 4*s and there are about 10 I would love to champ. Gotta catch 'em all.

For me, I'd like to have the choice on what to spend CP on. It would be great to spend a lot of my hoarded CP (over 1,500 now) on a token that had the classic 4*s (or all 4*s). Then I could get some more covers for those that I've played a little bit over the two years. Once I've done that and champed a few of the classic 4*, then I'll probably switch back to the latest/classic legend tokens that exist now to feel a sense of progress.

I feel like I just missed out on getting covers for the classic 4*. I had played with so many of those classic 4* (loaners or the few I have usable) and was looking forward to spending my CP to cover them. Then the ladder was pulled up and I feel locked out. For me, it's all about choice on what to spend my CP on.

smkspy · June 2017

Well if we want to keep playing the bonus hero game is great game. We should also point out that since the odds reset with every pull, people can either be really lucky or really unlucky.

Is it a fun system? Sure. Is it a dependable method to develop specific vaulted 4s? Yep did it myself with Moon Knight, Winter Soldier, somewhat Drax, and currently Spider Gwen. Is it a great way to maintain all those vaulted 4s once developed? Not even close.

4s go all the way up 370 in champ rewards, at this pace, I'd have to set my 271 Jean grey as my sole 4 star BH probably for remainder of the game's life to get her that high. This isn't even to mention the 14 other vaulted 4 champs stuck below 280. Those guys are stuck and until devs give up this fantasy that th 4 tier is the same as it was when hulkbuster was introduced, all those characters will wallow away under a now useless champ system.

Ayasugi-san · June 2017

I am. I started champing 4*s after vaulting was in place. It has accelerated my speed of champing the newer 4*s, but it's also made the point where new pulls would be wasted come much sooner, much faster than I can champ the 4*s with ISO. It's also made me not very happy for my future prospects, as I know that my champed 4*s will probably never reach level 300, if they even get that far, while I'll still be facing people who have the same 4*s at far higher levels. And PVP-wise, I can look forward to most opponents having two boosted 4*s per event where I might be lucky just to have one good one.

NewMcG · June 2017

People seem to have this illusion that under the old system, every 4* would eventually get champed and end up at 370. As of this moment, that would mean 5000 4* covers needed AFTER already champing every 4*, which is an additional 650 covers, assuming perfect distribution and no waste. (And not including Dino or Howard.)

At a rate of two more 4* added every 6 weeks (give or take some here and there) that means they're adding 226 extra 4* covers to that total every 6 weeks, or roughly 38 a week to "keep up". So, what's more likely scenario for working toward higher end champion levels: trying to keep up to that rate of covers (around 5 a day) over the long term, or building characters via a focused pool of LT draws at any given time, allowing 12 characters to grow 4 times faster, and providing bonus heroes as a supplement to also add levels to whatever character you may choose over time?

Arix90 · June 2017

They needs to be a cycle while the newest 10 and 5 of the old ones (those 5 change every season perhaps randomly to avois people planning and hoarding) are present in packs

Fightmastermpq · June 2017

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but for the "I want everyone at 370" crowd BH actually gets you there quicker because you can hand pick each character and get there with 0 wasted covers. Previously your cover waste would start to go through the roof as you got most of them finished and we started seeing first world problem "ugh, I've got 150 of the 170 4*s at 370 and guess what my last 150 draws were???" threads start popping up.

Don't try to think of it as the massive number of pulls you would have to have to get 100 levels on every vaulted character pulling them just 5% of the time. Think of it in the number of wasted covers. You've got the 12 newest champed, and you aren't getting them to 370 before they are vaulted (well most of us aren't), so you are wasting 0 covers. Every BH you pull gets applied to the character of your choice - again, no waste. So the total number of pulls required is exactly the same number as the total number of covers needed.....because there is no waste. Without BH/vaulting everything is controlled by RNGesus, and there is absolutely nothing that prevents you from getting additional covers for characters already at 370.......waste. And the closer you get to finishing the more waste you have.

optimus2861 · June 2017

Well.. I don't know what land I reside in, to be honest. I have on my roster:

6x 4* champions, all now vaulted (V): Thor, Fury, Iceman, Elektra, Sam Wilson, Star-Lord. Highest level 275.
1x 13-cover 4*: Spider-Woman (V)
2x 12: Invisible Woman, Hulkbuster (V)
2x 11: Luke Cage (V); Gwenpool, still available (A).
4x 10: Thing, Red Hulk, Kingpin (V), Blade (A).
6x 9: Mr. Fantastic, X-23, Carnage, Deadpool (V), Riri Williams, Captain Marvel (A).
I won't bother listing the rest of the 4*.
Most of the 5* characters, none of whom have more than 4 covers and I spend no ISO on them. Mostly useless outside of OML to grind trivial nodes alongside 3* Thanos.
Every 3* championed, ranging from 232 (GSBW) all the way down to 170 (Star-Lord).

I play in SCL7 almost all the time now, as I can sometimes pick off a decent placement there. I do not play to max progression in Story events. I did a few times in the old 4x model; I do not in the 5x. It's just too much. I typically hit 575 in PVP if I have the time to do so; I can't get much beyond the 600 range without taking massive hits, so I'd clearly have to do some major shield-hopping to try & reach 800 or (ha!) 900. There are days I just don't play much at all beyond DDQ (in particular on weekends as I try to spend that time with my family instead of staring at my phone!). There's only so much mindless gem-matching I can do in a day, I find.

There are days I don't know why I keep playing. The game seems to demand of me that I spend much more time than I am willing to give (Story max progression) and/or more $$$ (shield hop to try & reach higher PVP progression), just to hope that RNG doesn't bend me over with an unusable 4* cover from a pull (hello there Blade green, rotting in my queue; you'll soon join the two wasted Cage blacks in nonexistence).

Is there any progression path for my roster now? Hardly seems like it. By the time I get within striking distance on Carol or Blade or Medusa (8) covers, they'll likely disappear from tokens (Cage *sob*). Bonus Heroes have been a joke for me at the 5* (0) or 4* (4, 5 maybe?) tier (not that I really want any 5*; I know I'll never move into that tier anyway).

So. I get it. At this point, a game developer would look at my roster and say, "You're at the pain/pay wall. Accept your fate or pay up to make it easier on yourself." The game does seem designed in a way that if you are not playing to all those max targets nearly all of the time, you'll hit this "limbo" with no way out. Which is in line with most freemium games.

My nickel's worth.

tiomono · June 2017

@Brigby
I had all 3*s champed and maybe around 10 4*s champed when vaulting started. Any time a new 4 rolled out I did not care I would plop down my 1000 hp get my slot and hope I could slog through the masses and get them as a placement reward. Then basically watch them sit there for ages not even able to put a scratch on their titans matchup. It was annoying and I complained about it on nearly every survey I could.

So from my standpoint the old system was annoying. As many players are happy to point out dilution was a huge problem.

Vaulting 75% and growing of the 4* tier stopped dilution. But it brought a new and just as annoying problem. Oversaturation. Now every token I pull has a 1 in 36 draw rate on any character as opposed to 1 in 150 if we were still under the old system. While progress was glacially slow under the old system every token I pulled had a much higher chance at being actual progress.

Now I cover the latest 12 so fast many of them get stuck repeatedly pulling a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, etc, etc, etc, of the same color so that they still have no progress.

Do I want the old system back? No way. Am I happy where the current system is? Not even remotely close.

There are tons of interesting and fun characters in this game. And all of them are featured or boosted at one time or another. And with 38 and growing of the 4*s having the exact problem they had before, (no meaningful progress due to dillution, compared to no meaningful progress due to extremely limited reward options.) The progress you make in the 4* tier is becoming more frustrating than ever before.

And I have no idea why the 3*s got cut in half. I can not really recall people complaining at all about 3* dillution.

The supporters of the current system miss the point that almost none of the people that do not like this new system did not like and do not want back the old system. We like parts of this new system. But it brought in a slew of issues itself and could use some refining.

Vhailorx · June 2017

I serve an awful lot of snark, so i can't fairly be upset to receive it myself, and obviously feel however you feel.

But reading your post kinda makes me think that you haven't really read mine all the way through. Especially the long one immediately before your message in which i substantively address basically all of your criticisms.

1) champing just iceman is great. And BH is better than the previous system for champing ONE character. But there are more than 40 vaulted 4*s. BH at 5% is not sufficient to offset vaulting. As i said in an earlier post.

2) the ability to cover a select group of 4*s relatively quickly is the the big advantage of vaulting, and it's something that the game DID need. As i said in an earlier post.

3) criticizing the current vaulting system is not the samething as wanting to go back to the old system. As i said in an earlier post.

4) the difference between a boosted 275 champ and a boosted 340 champ is massive. The game doesnt differentiatr between current and vaulted 4*s when it comes go weekly boosting or pve featured characters. But is is WAY easier to get some 4*s to 340 or beyond than others. I thino that is a long term problem for the health of the game. As i said in an earlier post.

Reasonable people can disagree and you may not agree with me. Fight and i have been having the same discussion since march. But turning me into a strawman isn't going to move the argument forward at all.

CT1888 · June 2017

When this came in, I was well into 4* land, but felt like I was behind the release curve. New characters would sit for months if not years being useless. I had all the best earlier 4*s champed, with Jean Grey and Hulkbuster around 290.
I was working through Championing characters as they hit 13 covers, with Mr F being the last before the changes.
Due to the glacial speed of progress, my 4* champs were already in tiers, and those in the 285-290 area were getting significantly more play than those at 270-275 (X23 sometimes only tanked 1 cover at 271 unless I built a team around her and left out stronger characters).
The changes hit, and I shifted from champing weaker (in my opinion) older characters and focused on the current 12 - at the moment, R+G are the only ones to champion.
Blade and Cage have broken 300, Hulkbuster is at 293. The newer characters get more play than the older ones now, but I'm OK with that, as otherwise I'd still be using Icebuster, or Thor/IM40, or Jean/SWitch, or RHulk/SWitch, or one of the other over used teams from then, because they'd be in the 290-300 range and I might not've even covered Carol yet.

Bonus Hero's let me target 3 and 4* to chase down Cp and LTs, and getting into the top half of champ rewards for 3*s as well as joining a top alliance even gave me enough that I was able to get Thanos and Black Panther covered, so I'm making my way into 5* land.

The only downside of not being able to access the later 4* champ awards easily for older characters isn't even that much of an issue for me, as at the rate of progression from a pool of 40 4*s, it would've taken me months into years to reach them.

I like the current format. I'm sure it could be improved, but it's easy better than the old way.

MissChinch · June 2017

I had zero champion 4* prior to the vaulting change, now have 11 (or 12 I cant recall and don't have access to my phone presently).

My issues with vaulting are:

- Inability to get covers for 3/4th+ of the 4* tier by pulling tokens (rewards of retired 4*s are few and far between, if I'm lucky enough to get a reward 4* its more often than not one of the current 12)

- Inability to utilize the champion system beyond 10-20 levels... I'm assured that any new 4* cover I pull has no chance of being one of the 4*s I've championed that's outside of the current 12, so I can look forward to concentrated pulls on 4*s to get into the very weak champion levels (rewards and hero power) and it being nearly impossible to go further, greatly reduces a sense of progress and motivation

- Having to pull LTs on a schedule to hit featured 12 4*s... this requires the longest explanation: I don't accrue CP and LTs fast enough to cover a 5* before they expire out to classics and become excessively hard to acquire, so I hoard CP and LTs with the intent of pulling many at once to focus covers for the 3 5*s in latest legends, its the only feasible way I'll get adequately covered 5* heroes.

I used to be able to do this without penalty, anytime my hoard was ready I could look forward to pulling without significant detriment to my 4* progression. (Nearly all the covers I pull will be of heroes that I've worked on and already have covers for, if I were lucky some would have been champion rewards which help defray iso leveling costs) Now I'm not only guaranteed that I wont be hitting 4*s I have covers for, but depending on how long it takes me to acquire the hoard I could miss a 4* entirely. This is an issue for 4* transitioners due to the fact that there is a shared resource for acquiring 5*s and 4*s coupled with the difficulty of acquiring 5*s

What I do not have an issue with:

- ISO costs, I need to make as much iso as required to champion a 4* from scratch at the same rate or faster than the 4*s are released... this would still be true no matter what vaulting scheme is used... There is something to be said for distributing covers in such a way as to minimize the odds anyone sees high level lucrative champion rewards, but to me that's just splitting hairs where iso is concerned.

- Relative power of new heroes... There have been times I did not like the featured 12 on average, and times I have... relative strength of heroes being released has no bearing on evaluating the vaulting mechanic.

My first two issues can be addressed by giving the users the option to spend CP to pull from a store that has all the 4*s present, my third issue can not. I'm making an assumption by thinking that just providing an option to spend 20CP to pull from all available 4* and 5*s is not something D3/Demi is particularly keen on.

So FWIW my ideal solution would be short lived stores (similar to HfH) that allow CP to be spent that contain 3 5*s and 12 4*s chosen from the entire 5* and 4* pool respectively. If these stores change (at whatever frequency) it would provide incentive for people to spend instead of hoard on a combination they see as favorable...

I'm assuming purchases would be easier to model and predict when less users have giant hoards of CP/HP and new incentives would be more likely to trigger buy clubs if people aren't sitting on piles of CP.

It appears as if developer focus has moved several issues past investigating vaulting, is this something they're still looking into, and where is it on the priority list?

Thanks

SpringSoldier · June 2017

Friendly reminder: with or without vaulting, some covers will still go to waste. In fact, an undiluted vault/store offers better chances of champing a character quickly and not losing covers anymore. I still a want a token where I can get all the vaulted 4*, but it has nothing to do with wasted covers, ISO and so on. All the other issues will remain: champs will rarely reach max progression, some characters will be better than others etc.

MissChinch · June 2017

yup, I should have added rng cover distribution to my list of things I do NOT have an issue with as it pertains to vaulting.

Spidurman27 · June 2017

That would be me.....when vaulting occurred I had about 3 4* champs and about 7-8 chars at 10+ covers.

Now 21 champs.

Rest see my other post just above yours rather than cut/paste.

tiomono · June 2017

Has someone actually done the math on this? It may be confirmation bias on my part but it feels like I have thrown away far more covers since vaulting started. The only reason I see for that is that there are only 36 possible cover variations every time I pull a 4 from a token.

So the closer I get to having several covered the more waste I have because of a higher percentage of my characters being at 5 on one or more covers.

And yes under the old system I would still have wasted covers but 150 possible covers as opposed to 36 seems pretty clear cut which one will suck more if rng is not kind to you.

Vaulting and its fallout are still significant issues in the game. . .

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