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

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  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    GrimSkald said:
    tiomono 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...


    The disadvantage of drawing the 6th cover is more difficult to mitigate than in this current system...   you are less likely to draw that same character again in the old system, so you would need a bigger CP pool for insurance, and you would need much more iso in reserve for getting that 14th cover on a different character.


    Additionally in the new system you can only ever put yourself in jeopardy with 12 characters, and once you champion those theres no chance that you draw another cover that could put you at a bad 6th or bad 14th...  This parts a double edged sword though, because it also means you can quite reasonably get to a point where you will not make any progress toward championing any more 4*s regardless of how many covers you pull.

  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    Starfury 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)


    I just think the problem of dilution in token pulls is very dramatically overstated, and to fix something that I didn't see as a problem they overlaid a whole new set of issues, which interestingly enough ALSO came with ways to spend money to avoid.


    When vaulting was implemented, people were making 4* progress just fine (at least I was and I'm by no means ahead of the curve), with a set of about 40 characters... doubling the tier size (which would take well over 2 years at the current rate) while at the same time not increasing rewards for a solid two years of game time, would only make each character half as likely to be drawn.


    Nevermind that its completely unrealistic to expect rewards to stagnate for 2 years, they've reliably been giving out more and more rewards...  This is a wholly self created problem...  we weren't approaching some ominous cliff that was going to make progressing impossible, we were walking along a rolling hill, whether the slope was gently going up or gently going down was up for debate. 


  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
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    Vhailorx said:
    GrimSkald said:
    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...


    The disadvantage of drawing the 6th cover is more difficult to mitigate than in this current system...   you are less likely to draw that same character again in the old system, so you would need a bigger CP pool for insurance, and you would need much more iso in reserve for getting that 14th cover on a different character.


    Additionally in the new system you can only ever put yourself in jeopardy with 12 characters, and once you champion those theres no chance that you draw another cover that could put you at a bad 6th or bad 14th...  This parts a double edged sword though, because it also means you can quite reasonably get to a point where you will not make any progress toward championing any more 4*s regardless of how many covers you pull.

    It's very much a mixed issue.  Vaulting makes the 6th cover problem more likely to occur but also easier to fix.  With vaulting you are much more likely to draw a 6th cover for a current 12 4*.  But you are also much more likely to draw another cover for that same 4*.  And drawing a usless 6th cover is only an issue if you dont uave the iso or covers to champ that 4* within 2 weeks.  

    Additionally, the maximum amount of iso needed to solve any iso-related 4* concerns from cracking a large hoard of LTs is fixed at 4.5 mil.  Pre-vaulting that number could theoretically go much higher.  But of course the chances of that occuring were much lower.  

    Cover efficiency is one area where i dont think vaulting is clearly superior or inferior to the pre-vaulting system.  It's just different, and therefore requires a different cover-opening strategy.  
    I think it's a wash as well.  The likelihood of having useless covers is no different as your distribution across colors is entirely dependent on RNG under either system.  If you have a larger percentage of useless covers in the newest 12 than the vaulted covers then vaulting might appear to give you more useless covers, but that's still just RNG.  On the positive side you are far more likely to finish off a character before a useless cover expires with vaulting than prior, and it's also far easier to create large enough hoards/cp stashes to deal with it should you need to.

    The advantage pre-vaulting comes in rewards.  Since it took SO LONG to earn even a single cover for any given 4* you were actually more likely to have the exact cover that you needed come up as a progression/placement reward or in a vault before you had to sell off a large number of useless covers.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    Vhailorx said:
    GrimSkald said:
    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...


    The disadvantage of drawing the 6th cover is more difficult to mitigate than in this current system...   you are less likely to draw that same character again in the old system, so you would need a bigger CP pool for insurance, and you would need much more iso in reserve for getting that 14th cover on a different character.


    Additionally in the new system you can only ever put yourself in jeopardy with 12 characters, and once you champion those theres no chance that you draw another cover that could put you at a bad 6th or bad 14th...  This parts a double edged sword though, because it also means you can quite reasonably get to a point where you will not make any progress toward championing any more 4*s regardless of how many covers you pull.

    It's very much a mixed issue.  Vaulting makes the 6th cover problem more likely to occur but also easier to fix.  With vaulting you are much more likely to draw a 6th cover for a current 12 4*.  But you are also much more likely to draw another cover for that same 4*.  And drawing a usless 6th cover is only an issue if you dont uave the iso or covers to champ that 4* within 2 weeks.  

    Additionally, the maximum amount of iso needed to solve any iso-related 4* concerns from cracking a large hoard of LTs is fixed at 4.5 mil.  Pre-vaulting that number could theoretically go much higher.  But of course the chances of that occuring were much lower.  

    Cover efficiency is one area where i dont think vaulting is clearly superior or inferior to the pre-vaulting system.  It's just different, and therefore requires a different cover-opening strategy.  


    True, I just like it from a risk perspective because its much more bounded, and playing at a moderate rate can get you to the point where the majority of the featured 12 are covered which brings that ~4.5 million number way down.  Its realistic to put yourself in a scenario where you can guarantee ISO wont prevent you from using a 4* cover, and if you're a "pull em as you get em" you'll converge on that situation fairly quickly.


    It doesn't suit my goals and its not my style, but I think risk in general and risk mitigation are both "pros" of the vaulting scheme.

  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,490 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Vhailorx said:
    It's very much a mixed issue.  Vaulting makes the 6th cover problem more likely to occur but also easier to fix.  With vaulting you are much more likely to draw a 6th cover for a current 12 4*.  But you are also much more likely to draw another cover for that same 4*.  And drawing a usless 6th cover is only an issue if you dont uave the iso or covers to champ that 4* within 2 weeks.  

    Additionally, the maximum amount of iso needed to solve any iso-related 4* concerns from cracking a large hoard of LTs is fixed at 4.5 mil.  Pre-vaulting that number could theoretically go much higher.  But of course the chances of that occuring were much lower.  

    Cover efficiency is one area where i dont think vaulting is clearly superior or inferior to the pre-vaulting system.  It's just different, and therefore requires a different cover-opening strategy.  
    This, exactly.  One of those Rocket and Groot covers was going to expire at 1pm today - I specifically held off on my Iso expenditure (I could champ Gamora or R&G, my Gamora cover would expire a week from today,) until I drew my LTs and determined I did not draw that R&G blue.  Sure, the chance is low (85% of 1 in 36,) but it's definitely there.
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,490 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Post Script - I champed Gamora and now have a week to draw that R&G blue.  I can't say exactly what my chances are, but they're not bad - probably based on Legendary 10-20 tokens.  Certainly they're higher (by an order of magnitude) than if vaulting wasn't a thing.
  • Spidurman27
    Spidurman27 Posts: 184 Tile Toppler
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    Vhailorx said:
    GrimSkald said:
    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...


    The disadvantage of drawing the 6th cover is more difficult to mitigate than in this current system...   you are less likely to draw that same character again in the old system, so you would need a bigger CP pool for insurance, and you would need much more iso in reserve for getting that 14th cover on a different character.


    Additionally in the new system you can only ever put yourself in jeopardy with 12 characters, and once you champion those theres no chance that you draw another cover that could put you at a bad 6th or bad 14th...  This parts a double edged sword though, because it also means you can quite reasonably get to a point where you will not make any progress toward championing any more 4*s regardless of how many covers you pull.

    It's very much a mixed issue.  Vaulting makes the 6th cover problem more likely to occur but also easier to fix.  With vaulting you are much more likely to draw a 6th cover for a current 12 4*.  But you are also much more likely to draw another cover for that same 4*.  And drawing a usless 6th cover is only an issue if you dont uave the iso or covers to champ that 4* within 2 weeks.  

    Additionally, the maximum amount of iso needed to solve any iso-related 4* concerns from cracking a large hoard of LTs is fixed at 4.5 mil.  Pre-vaulting that number could theoretically go much higher.  But of course the chances of that occuring were much lower.  

    Cover efficiency is one area where i dont think vaulting is clearly superior or inferior to the pre-vaulting system.  It's just different, and therefore requires a different cover-opening strategy.  
    I think it's a wash as well.  The likelihood of having useless covers is no different as your distribution across colors is entirely dependent on RNG under either system.  If you have a larger percentage of useless covers in the newest 12 than the vaulted covers then vaulting might appear to give you more useless covers, but that's still just RNG.  On the positive side you are far more likely to finish off a character before a useless cover expires with vaulting than prior, and it's also far easier to create large enough hoards/cp stashes to deal with it should you need to.

    The advantage pre-vaulting comes in rewards.  Since it took SO LONG to earn even a single cover for any given 4* you were actually more likely to have the exact cover that you needed come up as a progression/placement reward or in a vault before you had to sell off a large number of useless covers.
    Bolded for agreement.  This was basically my strategy and counter strategy to any bad pulling that I encountered.  

    I am 100% certain that my roster efficiency was dramatically improved by vaulting.  I was also in a sweet spot where I had reasonable access to the now-vaulted class while building the newer non-vaulted one.  I changed and adapted my strategy to fit the new meta, and if and when it changes again I will.  
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
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    So I have a simple question for all the pro vaulted.

    If all they did was introduce bonus heros but vaulted nobody, would that be better than what we have now?
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2017
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    tiomono said:
    So I have a simple question for all the pro vaulted.

    If all they did was introduce bonus heros but vaulted nobody, would that be better than what we have now?
    I wouldn't complain. Who would? But they didn't release that feature, just like they didn't release a "you pick one cover you want, any cover you want, once per week" feature, or the "covers have no expiry timer" feature, or the "all covers are now taupe" feature.

    So it's totally valid to treat the vaulting/bonus heroes combo as one "system" even though they could have been done separately. It's clear that they were intended to be used together, and that is the system we should be adjusting our play to, and the system we should be providing feedback for.

    Would "no vaulting + bonus heroes" be better (by whose definition? mine?) than "vaulting + bonus heroes"?

    Hm. That would basically amount to 5% more covers, with a slight bias to the character you chose as a bonus hero. It's clearly all upside, but doesn't address the dilution issue. The 4* transition was extremely slow for me prior to vaulting because covers came too evenly distributed. (I champed five 4*s before vaulting/BH and twelve since, only 4 of those due to BH alone)

    So no, for me, just the bonus heroes feature would not have been better.

  • Pants1000
    Pants1000 Posts: 484 Mover and Shaker
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    tiomono said:
    So I have a simple question for all the pro vaulted.

    If all they did was introduce bonus heros but vaulted nobody, would that be better than what we have now?

    No, at least not in my opinion.  The biggest problem I had with the old system is that it could take 12+ months to cover a new character if you were unlucky with pulls.  I have 30+ 4's champed, but not Rulk because I rarely pulled him.  I didn't get his 13th cover until after vaulting.  He'll be the first vaulted 4 on my list to champ when I fully catch up on the latest 12, but I haven't got there quite yet.

    I suppose I could have set Rulk as my bonus hero and finished him off, but I just used Rulk as an example.  Bonus heroes work well for 1-2 characters, but not so much for 5+.

    Another advantage of the current system over just bonus heroes is the lack of wasted covers once you catch up on the latest 12.  Before vaulting about 25% of my pulls were wasted, because I wasn't going to champ the low end 4's anytime soon, and I had 8-10 of them max covered.  Now that I'm mostly caught up I waste less than 5%, and that could be even lower if I were willing to hoard more.  
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    tiomono said:

    I'm tired of people talking over others just because they think what we have now is great. Feedback is essentially opinions and perceptions. If someone perceives a feature in a negative light their feedback will be negative and want adjustments. Nobody's opinion is wrong essentially.

    I'm sorry it's coming off that way. I'm really just trying to help those who are having a negative experience find other ways to look at the changes that they might not have considered. Especially since several people have almost opted out of opening tokens, which is clearly not fun and clearly not intended.
    So I'm just trying to encourage them to actually use the system, instead of protest-hoarding (and bringing it up in every post they make everywhere in the most vitriolic way possible).
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
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    tiomono said:
    So I have a simple question for all the pro vaulted.

    If all they did was introduce bonus heros but vaulted nobody, would that be better than what we have now?
    No.  BH alone would not be enough to solve the dilution problem that would still be continuing to worsen.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    tiomono said:
    So I have a simple question for all the pro vaulted.

    If all they did was introduce bonus heros but vaulted nobody, would that be better than what we have now?
    No.  BH alone would not be enough to solve the dilution problem that would still be continuing to worsen.
    This strongly undercuts your position that BH is sufficient to address everyone's concerns about covering vaulted 4*s.  
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
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    tiomono said:
    Yes but everytime anyone gives feedback not liking the current system they get their opinion "fixed" by the players that like vaulting. 

    Can people not accept that feedback is a players opinion.

    Was Logan too strong? Not at high end play he was actually fairly balanced from what I heard. But it was popular opinion that he was too strong. At early levels he was really strong in comparison to every other 5. So he got changed based on negative perceptions.

    So whether or not someone has a good argument for why this system we have now is fantastic, it is still ok for people to not like parts of it and speculate what could make it better. I would still say a big chunk of people hate what we have now and want something different.

    I'm tired of people talking over others just because they think what we have now is great. Feedback is essentially opinions and perceptions. If someone perceives a feature in a negative light their feedback will be negative and want adjustments. Nobody's opinion is wrong essentially.

    An opinion based on invalid assumptions may not be wrong but it's essentially worthless.

    Scroll back through my posts in this thread and you'll find the following:
     - Me seeking clarity in what assumptions are made about vaulting (my very first post in the thread)
     - Agreement that there are in fact negative aspects of vaulting (my correction of broll's list, and comment on useless covers)
     - Explanation of why many "problems" with vaulting are not grounded in reality, use bad math, or fail to see the big or long term picture

    This is a public discussion forum.  You can't state an opinion based on falsities and not expect it to be challenged.
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Vhailorx said:
    This strongly undercuts your position that BH is sufficient to address everyone's concerns about covering vaulted 4*s.  
    The issue of covering vaulted 4*'s and the dilution issue are not the same issue. There is no contradiction here.
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
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    tiomono said:

    I'm tired of people talking over others just because they think what we have now is great. Feedback is essentially opinions and perceptions. If someone perceives a feature in a negative light their feedback will be negative and want adjustments. Nobody's opinion is wrong essentially.

    I'm sorry it's coming off that way. I'm really just trying to help those who are having a negative experience find other ways to look at the changes that they might not have considered. Especially since several people have almost opted out of opening tokens, which is clearly not fun and clearly not intended.
    So I'm just trying to encourage them to actually use the system, instead of protest-hoarding (and bringing it up in every post they make everywhere in the most vitriolic way possible).
    Yeah vitriol is no fun. 

    I open as I get. I do not hoard. I am still very early in the 4 star game. I have had some things I like with the new system and some I really do not like.

    So when I give feedback it will often have suggestions on possible tweaks to the system. 

    I dislike that my very first 4* champ hulkbuster is already 2 levels behind my best (Luke cage). Cage is at 277. They are both vaulted. How many covers will I see for them moving forward? I only have 3 current characters champed. That leaves my other 14 in some weird limbo where I will see no decent progression on any of them. 

    I could put one as a bonus but at the rate they roll in that doesn't feel like a good way to progress I to higher rewards either. So I feel stuck and increasingly frustrated and disinterested in playing. 

    That's my feedback. And I know many others feel similar. Take that however you want. But if enough people get frustrated and stop then the game slowly dies. I like this game alot. No other mobile game has held my attention like this one. I want to continue liking it but too many of the recent changes are making me lose interest. 

    I do not know how every player feels. I do know I am frustrated and losing interest. My wife is a step beyond me and doesn't know why she plays lol.

    If d3 continue to sit and say nothing while rolling out changes like this it's hard for us the players to see the big picture. 

    At this point my post is going beyond vaulting and more just state of the game in general so I'm stopping.
  • Fightmastermpq
    Fightmastermpq Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
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    Vhailorx said:
    Didnt everyone who just said they prefer "vaulting + bh" over "no vaulting+bh" also argue that bh was a perfectly way of covering vaulted 4*s?  

    If so, then why is dilution a concern under the"no-vaulting+bh"?  You can just use bh to cover whoever you want?  

    It really seems like the people who like vaulting + bh are the one who dont care about vaulted 4*s, either because they dont need many more covers for older 4*s, or because they arent completionists, or because they like building newer 4*s faster.  That's all fine.  But why does it mean that I am wrong to care more about the vaulted characters?
    Because you still aren't able to comprehend what dilution is and why it's bad?  

    Dilution is bad because it makes it very difficult to make meaningful progress in a reasonable period of time.  Vaulting is good because it solves that problem.  It allows for meaningful progress more than 4x quicker than without it.  

    BH is great because it allows for meaningful progress on 1 or 2 characters in a reasonable amount of time to allow you to target a couple favorites or top tier characters to improve your roster to your liking.  But as a mechanism for making meaningful progress into the entirety of the 4* tier it falls short.  I never claimed that BH was a "perfectly way of covering [all] vaulted 4*s", it's not.

    Dilution + BH would just be too slow still.