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

Spidurman27

My pulling strategy is to pull in spurts when I have the iso to champ one character on hand (and can champ another inside 2 weeks, if not a third).  This meant that I pulled infrequently, but with near zero waste.  Since vaulting, I have only wasted CP on maybe one or two pulls total, because I've been willing to brute-force my way to 13 covers.

My last pulling burst was beginning of this season for about 1100 CPE - stopping as soon as I had any risk of waste, and champed those characters.  Then once I had my ISO stable, went back and pulled more and champed the rest of the 12.

smkspy

New McG said:

smkspy said:

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.

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?

Everyone knew it was a slow progress under the old system, but at least it was a relatively even one. Now it's a race to champ and level characters before time runs out. 

No matter how many people want to tout mah bonus heroes for vaulted characters it is 100%  nothing more than an unreliable consolation feature for the problem of acquiring vault characters for whatever method you are using it for, and that it needs to be addressed.

Wumpushunter

Oh, also because of vaulting i have missed numerous burritos, clashes and 4 star essentials content.

Spidurman27

Wumpushunter said:

Oh, also because of vaulting i have missed numerous burritos, clashes and 4 star essentials content.

DDQ is my biggest issue with vaulting both at the 3 and 4* level.  The right side nodes require a vaulted 3* half the time roughly, and you aren't playing them without it.  And the burrito can require a vaulted 3, 4, or both.  

Let alone requiring, it's a royal pain slogging that burrito with horribly undercovered characters even if you're fortunate to have the right couple covers.   

Jaedenkaal

Wumpushunter said:

Oh, also because of vaulting i have missed numerous burritos, clashes and 4 star essentials content.

Your (and anyone's) chances of having pulled all (or any) of those 4*s you need for 4* essentials were minuscule at best, and you would NOT have been prepared for crashes any faster.

broll

Jaedenkaal said:

Wumpushunter said:

Oh, also because of vaulting i have missed numerous burritos, clashes and 4 star essentials content.

Your (and anyone's) chances of having pulled all (or any) of those 4*s you need for 4* essentials were minuscule at best, and you would NOT have been prepared for crashes any faster.

Maybe not clashes but certainly burritos.  It's a lot easier in the old system to get 1 of every character than it is now for someone who started after vaulting.  A  lot easier (especially since they hardly ever feature the vaulted anymore either).

Also there are a number of clashes (not a lot but some) that is only takes 1-3 covers to be able to win.

Jaedenkaal

broll said:

 It's a lot easier in the old system to get 1 of every character than it is now for someone who started after vaulting. 

I simply don't buy this argument. It was extremely likely for someone to go months and months (certainly longer than vaulting has been implemented so far) without seeing a 4* cover for a some character or another.

Fightmastermpq

Wumpushunter said:

Oh, also because of vaulting i have missed numerous burritos, clashes and 4 star essentials content.

Have you even tried?  You aren't even opening your tokens. Set your BH to the 4s that you don't have and open your **** tokens so that you can participate instead of **** about a problem that YOU created.

Jarvind

I mean, I don't think anyone is laboring under the delusion that the old system was good. It's just that the new system only solves part of the problem, and unless you're willing to only level one vaulted character at a time, makes the other part significantly worse.

broll

Jaedenkaal said:

broll said:

 It's a lot easier in the old system to get 1 of every character than it is now for someone who started after vaulting. 

I simply don't buy this argument. It was extremely likely for someone to go months and months (certainly longer than vaulting has been implemented so far) without seeing a 4* cover for a some character or another.

I started playing 1.5 years ago and got to a point where I had every 4* within the first 6-8 months.  It's possible I was an outlyer but I don't think so.  RNG is RNG there will be odd cases, but even more than that in the old system they would at least be featured and available from progression/placement/vaults much more frequently then they are now.  

Also even if that was the case BH fixes that problem.  I don't think anyone is suggesting we go back to the old system, just that we don't like the significant new problems the 'fix' created.

Also you state it was possible to go 'longer than vaulting has been implemented so far' without seeing a particular 4* character.  In that time with vaulting I haven't seen a cover for:
Carnage
Drax
Ghost Rider
Iceman (excluding one i bought from H4H)
Invisable Woman
Jean Grey
Kingpin
Miles Morales
Mr. Fantastic
Nick Fury
Spider-Gwen
The Punisher
Thor  (excluding one i bought from H4H)
Venom (not an agent)
War Machine
Winter Soldier

So while in the old system there might be 1 character i didn't see in those months, in this system there were 16/52 (30%).  BH would not be able to make up that much difference.  I think I've seen a total of 6 or 7 4* BHs since launch.

EDIT: And that 16 not seen is with me using the BH system to target 3*s that would give me usable 4*s from champ levels.  It would be higher had I not done that (closer to 21).

animaniactoo

Jaedenkaal said:

broll said:

 It's a lot easier in the old system to get 1 of every character than it is now for someone who started after vaulting. 

I simply don't buy this argument. It was extremely likely for someone to go months and months (certainly longer than vaulting has been implemented so far) without seeing a 4* cover for a some character or another.

Anecdotal to be sure... but I'm on day 578, and I champed my last 3 star right before vaulting came in. I didn't know it was about to be implemented and I went on a spree with the CP I'd been hoarding against the point where I could afford to spend ISO on 4*s. I picked up all but one of the 5 4*s I didn't have at that point, and I have them all now.

Admittedly I tend to grind at the game pretty hard..., I rarely pass by a PVE, but between heroic tokens, LTs, and progression/placement rewards, I was able to fill my roster.

With vaulting, if I didn't have the vaulted characters, I'd miss out on the 2 most prolific possibilities for attaining them.

ETA: 3* Champion rewards and shield resupply also help, but I think they are the rarest methods pre-vaulting.

Jaedenkaal

broll said:

I started playing 1.5 years ago and got to a point where I had every 4* within the first 6-8 months.  It's possible I was an outlyer but I don't think so.  RNG is RNG there will be odd cases, but even more than that in the old system they would at least be featured and available from progression/placement/vaults much more frequently then they are now.  

Also even if that was the case BH fixes that problem.  I don't think anyone is suggesting we go back to the old system, just that we don't like the significant new problems the 'fix' created.

Also you state it was possible to go 'longer than vaulting has been implemented so far' without seeing a particular 4* character.  In that time with vaulting I haven't seen a cover for:
Carnage
Drax
Ghost Rider
Iceman (excluding one i bought from H4H)
Invisable Woman
Jean Grey
Kingpin
Miles Morales
Mr. Fantastic
Nick Fury
Spider-Gwen
The Punisher
Thor  (excluding one i bought from H4H)
Venom (not an agent)
War Machine
Winter Soldier

So while in the old system there might be 1 character i didn't see in those months, in this system there were 16/52 (30%).  BH would not be able to make up that much difference.  I think I've seen a total of 6 or 7 4* BHs since launch.

You had the advantage at that time of pulling from a pool of only ~30 4*s. Your odds were much better then. The same is true regarding availability in events; there were simply many fewer 4*s so they could cycle through events nearly twice as fast. Both of these issues have to do with the total number of 4*s then and now, which has nothing to do with vaulting.
I was doing -very- poorly with collecting 4*s myself until they were added to PVE progression rewards at SCL 7, which I believe was (permanently) implemented sometime last summer.

Also, the pedant in me can't help but point out that Spider-Gwen was available as a progression reward in PVE since vaulting, so if you've missed her, that's on you.

MissChinch

It was easier to get all the characters in the 3* tier under the old system, if by nothing else than just by virtue of the pool of 3*s being less diluted when it came to rewards in PvE...   3*s were a progression reward and it didn't take long to go through all of em...  

We have more special event stuff that delays cycling through all the 3*s as progression rewards, and they've kept diluting the pool, despite only letting a subset of them be drawn from the common tokens now...  I'm not even sure if they ARE cycling through all the 3*s as PvE progression rewards anymore.

Theres clearly more being considered here than just whats the best way to cover 4*s and provide a fun user experience or else we would have seen the option given to us...  I strongly believe that HP sales correlating to HfH store purchases is going to give D3/Demi far more meaningful feedback, at least in terms of what they're concerned about, so all this chatter is moot.

aa25

Fightmastermpq said:

aa25 said:

Token dilution is definitely a problem. But the current "vaulting" method is not the solution. It just moves the problem that used to be with all 4* over to the vintage 4*.

You can't say that. You aren't comprehending what dilution really is. If there are 50 4*s and you pull 50 tokens and get 1 of each that's not helpful. That's dilution - the pool is too diluted for you to make meaningful progress on them all. D3 isn't in the habit of handing out free tokens (well, not more than the 5% BH we got anyway), so those 50 pulls that you got aren't going to change. So ANYTHING you do to use those same 50 pulls to make meaningful progress on any character will necessarily prevent you from making meaningful progress on some other character or group of characters. Period. That's just math.

aa25 said:

People who are transitioning when the vault kicked in suffer the most, many of them essentially have their progress set back tremendously if not have to start the transition process all over again.

No. They aren't starting the process over again because the process they followed before is gone, and the process they follow now is very different. The process they follow now takes less than 1/4 the time it did before. That means if you were less than 3/4 done with a character (fewer than 10 covers) you will actually max cover a character in tokens now faster than you would have finished off those last 4+ covers under the old system.

I quite agree with what you said actually. My point is that, it is true the 'vault' system is better than what it was, but I don't think it is a complete solution for the token dilution problem. It does make more meaningful progress on the latest 4*, but still meaningless for vintage 4*. It is true that BH can help getting covers of a few vintage 4*, but you cannot really get all the vintage 4* from BH. Maybe it is just me with this 'pokemon syndrome' but there are many interesting and fun 4* among the vintage which I would like to have a chance to run. With the BH, now you have 5% for those interesting 4*, which is frankly pretty much the same odds you have in the old system. (hence my point about moving the dilution from all 4* to only vintage). I just hope that there will be a follow ups that would actually address token dilution.

MissChinch

Jaedenkaal said:

You had the advantage at that time of pulling from a pool of only ~30 4*s. Your odds were much better then. The same is true regarding availability in events; there were simply many fewer 4*s so they could cycle through events nearly twice as fast. Both of these issues have to do with the total number of 4*s then and now, which has nothing to do with vaulting.
I was doing -very- poorly with collecting 4*s myself until they were added to PVE progression rewards at SCL 7, which I believe was (permanently) implemented sometime last summer.

Also, the pedant in me can't help but point out that Spider-Gwen was available as a progression reward in PVE since vaulting, so if you've missed her, that's on you.

The pool of 4*s may have been around 30, but CP and LTs were at least twice as scarce then... CP and LT resources have been added in proportionally larger amounts than the pool of the 4*s has grown, if they continued with that all 4* heroes get strictly easier to obtain across the board without vaulting even coming into play.

Jaedenkaal

MissChinch said:

The pool of 4*s may have been around 30, but CP and LTs were at least twice as scarce then... CP and LT resources have been added in proportionally larger amounts than the pool of the 4*s has grown, if they continued with that all 4* heroes get strictly easier to obtain across the board without vaulting even coming into play.

That would keep the "average" number of covers you receive for a given character the same, yes (by increasing the number of covers you get) but it also drastically increases the probable variance from that average to the point where you are still staggeringly unlikely to get any particular character from a draw, and extremely likely to never see some characters from tokens.

Wumpushunter

Jaedenkaal said:

Also, the pedant in me can't help but point out that Spider-Gwen was available as a progression reward in PVE since vaulting, so if you've missed her, that's on you.

if I am not mistaken the 4 star essentials for her was a vaulted character, also 4 star for progression is on 7 and 8  only.

Jaedenkaal

Wumpushunter said:

if I am not mistaken the 4 star essentials for her was a vaulted character, also 4 star for progression is on 7 and 8  only.

Yes, the 4* essential required to get a Spider-Gwen cover was... Spider-Gwen. You can still get the 4* progression reward in a story event without having the essential; I do it every new release.

 And I was responding to Broll, who presumably is entering SCL 7 or 8 on a regular basis.

GrimSkald

tiomono said:

SpringSoldier said:

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.

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.

I don't have the math, but I have been tracking "wasted" covers - ones I've had to sell rather than apply to champ levels - since a bit after the "Bonus Heroes" system went into place.  So far I've wasted 2 Agent Coulson, 1 Kate Bishop, 3 Medusa, 1 Mordo, 2 Rocket & Groot, and a whopping 4 Wasp (I got really tied up with Wasp.)  I strongly suspect it would be worse in the old system - in the current system you have a much better chance of drawing any particular cover you need from the current 12.  For example, I had 4 Rocket and Groot covers slated to burn.  In the time where I've burned two of them, I've drawn R&G to the point where I need only one more cover to finish him.  Unfortunately it's a specific cover (blue,) but that's the way it goes sometimes...

Starfury

Jaedenkaal said:

broll said:

 It's a lot easier in the old system to get 1 of every character than it is now for someone who started after vaulting. 

I simply don't buy this argument. It was extremely likely for someone to go months and months (certainly longer than vaulting has been implemented so far) without seeing a 4* cover for a some character or another.

Yeah, now it's extremely likely someone will go months and months without seeing a 4* cover for a dozen characters. Not quite the same thing.

But yeah, we get one vaulted 4* as a PvE progression reward about once every 2 weeks.

The only place where they still rotate 4* without giving preference to non-vaulted is DDQ Crash and Burrito (which just so happens to be when they're happy to sell you a cover for 25 bucks)