The reasons why we Hoard

Punisher5784

I have heard on several occasions over the years that the Developers do not understand why we hoard. There are many different reasons why players hoard. Everyone hoards for different reasons, including myself. Therefore, based on my 3+ years of experience on this game I will give my MPQ professional opinion on hoarding.

 

• Lack of Iso: I’ll start with the easiest, a lack of Iso to champ characters. I always feel Iso broke because no matter how much I play, my Iso is gone the moment I champ someone (similar to real life with work and bills!). We love Anniversary because of Double Iso because it feels like the appropriate amount we should be receiving. Although, they have increased the Iso over the years (e.g. Removed 20 Iso reward, DDQ, Champ rewards, Shield Rank rewards), it still never feels like enough Iso. We do have the ability to buy Iso but it is ridiculously overpriced. For $100, you’re buying 78K Iso which is not even enough to champ 2*! If they truly want us to purchase Iso then lower the cost or raise the Iso amount to something more reasonable. Right now hoarding allows us to save up enough Iso to champ a character.

 

• Lack of HP: This is similar to Iso. Roster slots are not cheap and they are accompanied with numerous characters that most players will likely never cover, such as 5*’s. As someone who has retired from the game on 3 occasions, every time I have returned I had to buy at least 5-10 roster slots for all the characters I missed. I could not imagine what it is like for a new player nowadays. A couple of years ago the developers discussed giving us more ways to earn roster slots, but shortly after it was expressed that roster slots are a major source of revenue for MPQ. Ultimately, the flow of HP is good if you play a lot, but for many others hoarding allows us to save up for HP to purchase a roster slot.

 

• 6th Cover: This has been the biggest lingering problem since day 1. Nothing is worse than having a 5/1/1 and you pulled the 6th cover, or you have 12 covers and you finally pull a 6th cover of a color you have maxed! It can literally ruin your day. Imagine you bust your butt to earn a token, only for it to yield a cover you cannot use. All the Iso and HP in the world cannot solve this issue. Sure, we have Heroes For Hiro (HfH) that gives us the opportunity to purchase the 13th cover but this occurrence is rare and no one knows how to make it trigger. Sure, you can purchase a cover with CP, but depending on the character, it is not worth the 120 CP for a 4* cover (6 pulls of Classics or nearly 5 pulls of Latest). Sure, we have Bonus Heroes (BH), but again, it can still grant us the 6th cover so it is a waste to BH a character that has 5 covers on one color. All of these alternative solutions they have implemented over the years will never replace a system that will allow us to apply the 6th cover to another color. By hoarding tokens/CP, it allows us to open in bulk to give us a higher chance to get the cover you need, otherwise we’ll selling potential champ levels.

 

• Expired Covers: Everything above sums up one to this one particular issue, expired covers. We have 14 days to utilize the cover or sell it for a puny amount of Iso. Believe it or not, back in 2015 they graciously extended the expiration from 7 days to 14 days. This was prior to the massive 4* releases and 5* characters. It is time to either extend it again or better yet remove the expiration of covers. We earned these covers! The developers could argue that 13 days is plenty of time but it’s not. When you start opening your LT’s and you’re stuck with 10 covers you can’t use, it gives no incentive to open tokens because you either do not have enough resources (Iso, HP) or you’re stuck with the 6th cover. If the devs removed the Expiration dates, then this would eliminate most of the hoarding.

 

• Event Tokens: This is only the extreme hoarders. Basically, there are players that hoard Event tokens to give better odds when the event runs again. This is possibly due to the Vault not containing characters they need at that time. On the other hand, there is a small group of players that save Event Tokens to see what the next Event will be. The token display changes for the Event that will be next. I have not heard this in awhile, most likely since Brigby updates the monthly events on the forums.

 

• Deadpool Taco Tokens: These are the tokens that most players hoard. Why? Because the vault is open for 5 days and it has 300 contents! Sure, they increased the Tacos to 3 a day but 15 tacos is not going to give you that 13th cover of a 4* you desperately need. If you can wait until you amassed 300 tacos, then you can empty the vault! The rewards are good but the time it takes to open them all sucks! An ‘Open All’ button would be amazing!

   

• Increased Odds: There was a time when a new PVP Season started, there was a chance Heroic tokens would increase the percentage of pulling 3* and 4* characters. This was their way of handling the dilution of all the new characters. As a result, many players hoarded their Heroic tokens until the odds increased. This was prior to Legendary tokens and I do not recall the last time Heroic Token odds increased. However, I am sure there are many players that still hold on, hoping their tokens will increase... like 5* characters in Classics. History shows that increasing token odds has always rewarded the hoarders. Which brings us to the next reason…

 

• Glitches: This has been the reason to hoard lately. There have been a few occurrences where the odds for 5* characters were higher than normal due to some glitch. Most recently this happened with Gambit’s Mon Ami tokens during Anniversary IV. 5* pulls were 25%! Hoarders have been able to take advantage of these occasional glitches. Perhaps if this game was tested more, these types of glitches wouldn’t happen but since they do players will hoard for the chance at increased 5* rates.

   

• Changes: There have been many occasions where hoarding is a huge advantage when there is a major change in the game. Hoarders raised above the non-hoarders when Championing was introduced. Prior to championing the non-hoarders were cashing in on tokens as they earned them and forcibly selling covers because they couldn’t use them. When championing released, the hoarders open their tokens and added numerous levels. A similar occurrence happened with Vaulting. Although many players expressed their dislike for Vaulting old characters, the hoarders were able to quickly champ all the new 4* characters (e.g. Carol, Medusa, Blade). Bonus Heroes was also huge. All the hoarders were able to unload their hoard to gain extra bonus covers. Shield Rank was also a factor for Vets that started at max Rank 65 if they hoarded because they were able to unload their hoard and gain several levels. Most recently, Exp moved from completing missions and opening tokens to adding covers to characters. Hoarders were able to open all their tokens, then wait until the change went to effect to apply the covers for extra exp. These are just a few occurrences where changes have allowed hoarders to gain the upper hand over non-hoarders during a change.

   

• New Characters: This is very common amongst players since the beginning of the game. New characters enter tokens at the start of the new PVP season. If there is a new character you personally love or a new character that is deemed as very strong then players who going to at least hoard for the season and unload when the character finally hits tokens. This happened back in the day with 3*s entering heroics, and it’s happening now with Legendary tokens. It is mostly seen with Latest, when a new 5* hits the tokens and the oldest of the Latest move to Classics. Players prefer to wait for 3 strong 5* in Latest. For instance, most players hoarded when Doc Ock and Starlord were in Latest because they were considered very weak, especially Doc Ock. Now with DD, Gambit and the upcoming Thor, players will be unloading their hoards. Also, the new 5* release tokens gives the players the opportunity to open their hoard to fully cover the new 5*. Unfortunately they recently added two Classic 5*’s to the new release token, so most times it might be better off to wait until they enter Latest tokens. Bonus Heroes is also a reason to wait for new characters because you cannot “heart” them until they enter tokens. Hoarding allows players to try their luck at new characters instead of being opening the old ones.

   

• Essentials: This type of hoarding has actually been around since the beginning of the game. It seems newish because of the PVE essentials but it actually occurred during the old PVP days. Originally the PVP Loaner only had 1 cover (the first one). Believe it or not, players would cycle characters each PVP, meaning if there were a character they didn’t need, they would sell them. Then when the specific character had their PVP, they would open their hoard. It sounds odd and I am likely wording this wrong, but that’s what I recalled when I first started playing. Nonetheless, another reason was prior to champing, players held onto abilities they may need 5 covers of at a later time (e.g. Captain Marvel, 5 covers of red to destroy all shields). Many players, including myself just start rostering dups with different builds to prevent hoarding for this reason. Anyways, the main purpose of Essential hoarding nowadays is PVE. Prior to Champing, there was no reason to waste roster slots for 2*s, until they became essential, so players started to cycle their 2* characters every PVE event. Eventually 4* essentials were introduced, personally at that time, many of my friends quit the game because they were selling their 4* characters. Now we have 5* essentials and it is set as 3 Latest, 2 Classic. This means we have to keep up with new 5* character releases. When Doc Ock and Peter Parker became essential I had to open my Legendary token hoard so I could compete in PVE. This change was likely due to prevent us from hoarding Latest tokens for new 5* releases. Except now we definitely have to hoard so we can open Latest tokens until we get the 5* essential. Sure the HfH store now sells 5*, but the Latest character cover for 500 CP is steep, especially when you can easily pull 1 cover with 500 CP AND get a bunch of 4* covers. The price for Classics at 250 CP is reasonable but unless it’s a new character release or it’s the 13th cover, it’s not worth it either. Hoarding is the way to go for PVE Essentials.

   

• For Fun!: Believe it or not, there are many players that simply hoard for fun or as a challenge. Last year many forum users hoarded until Thanksgiving, then again on Christmas. None of the reasons above, just simply to open a bunch of tokens on a Holiday. Last year I did it for Christmas and it was glorious. I think I enjoyed my token pulls more than the gift my wife got me. The point is, some players truly just like to hoard for fun. Many players share their pulls on the forum or on Line. Others take it one step further by providing statistics of their pulls and create graphs! As silly as it sounds, I like hearing about others fortunes or misfortunes of their token pulls. We all like to share the glory and the misery of our hoarded pulls. The fun hoarders inspired others to do the same.

 

Those are the several reasons off the top of my head. As you can see there are many different reasons why Hoarders hoard. There is clearly a trend of Hoarders gaining an advantage, and history shows that you are better off hoarding. Sure, sometimes it hurts you because you may have weaker characters than your non-hoarding counterparts, but when the time comes to unload the hoard it has shown to be a huge advantage. What have the Developers done about? Recently they have introduced 5* essentials that are mostly Latest, changing the way we gain experience points, Shield Training for new characters, etc. Most players have deemed these changes as negative. Personally, if they found a viable solution for the 6th cover or removed the expiration date on covers then I would completely stop hoarding.

 

How about you? Are there any Hoarding reasons I missed? Why do you hoard? What would make you stop hoarding?

Jaedenkaal

That's a lot of words just to say "because covers expire, but tokens do not. Also for fun"

:P

Vaults are the only reason I hoard; if the only 4* covers I could get are covers I can't use (yet) I just wait. Again, though, it's because the covers expire but the tokens don't.

animaniactoo

I hoard a base minimum CP so that I always have the option to use them to buy a cover if I decide I want it badly enough - say I have 4 covers hanging on the vine and none of them are the right color to finish off my 2/5/5 or 3/5/4 character.

Currently, I'm a 4* player, so that means 240 CP (backup in case it happens 2x in a row! unlikely but I'm a better safe than sorry when it comes to places where I'm creating safety margins for myself).

With the release of the 5* in the HFH, it means 500 CP more just in case I decide I need a character or cover badly enough for a particular event.

At the moment I'm about 65CP shy of the 740 base that will be my new minimum going forward. After that, I only hoard due to temporary iso shortage. I have not much self control and I don't mind selling off a cover if I really have to, but I mind greatly selling off a cover that I could just not have pulled yet and shouldn't have while my ISO had an active fulfillment purpose.

Punisher5784

Jaedenkaal said:

That's a lot of words just to say "because covers expire, but tokens to not. Also for fun"

:P

Vaults are the only reason I hoard; if the only 4* covers I could get are covers I can't use (yet) I just wait. Again, though, it's because the covers expire but the tokens don't.

I know! it started simple but then I began thinking about all the other reasons and it became this very long post. Regardless, I don't think I missed anything and it should enlighten the developers on the numerous reasons

Dormammu

ISO is my bottleneck. I could champ over a dozen 4-stars right now if I had the ISO. So I hoard to avoid 14th covers going to waste. Got no choice.

I don't really mind hoarding. Something has to be the bottleneck, otherwise we'd all have every single character champed.

Daredevil217

You missed hoarding Tacos so you can open them when you need healthpacks.  Many do this (myself included).

AlexxKats

I also have another approach.

Except the cp/lt's which i hoard until there's something worthy to open (eg gambit), i also hoard all the rest tokens for management purposes.

I keep taco tokens for those bad pvp days (you should see my bad board luck, it's epic, often north of 60 enemy ap on round 1) as daredevil mentioned.

All the rest (even standard ones) i open once every 13 days. Then i spend a good 15 minutes deciding who gets championed/farmed/duped/sold, then forget about those pending covers for next 13 days.

crackninja

Iso is the only reason I hoard,  but it's omnipresent. I may randomly hoard elite and standard tokens for a month or so but that's out of laziness and not "hoarding".

Kishida

Punisher5784 said:

• For Fun!: Believe it or not, there are many players that simply hoard for fun or as a challenge. Last year many forum users hoarded until Thanksgiving, then again on Christmas. None of the reasons above, just simply to open a bunch of tokens on a Holiday. Last year I did it for Christmas and it was glorious. I think I enjoyed my token pulls more than the gift my wife got me. 
  

I'm telling your wife!  

jamesh

Jaedenkaal said:

That's a lot of words just to say "because covers expire, but tokens do not. Also for fun"

:P

Vaults are the only reason I hoard; if the only 4* covers I could get are covers I can't use (yet) I just wait. Again, though, it's because the covers expire but the tokens don't.

So what you're saying is that they should make tokens expire too?

Daredevil217

AlexxKats said:

I also have another approach.

Except the cp/lt's which i hoard until there's something worthy to open (eg gambit), i also hoard all the rest tokens for management purposes.

I keep taco tokens for those bad pvp days (you should see my bad board luck, it's epic, often north of 60 enemy ap on round 1) as daredevil mentioned.

All the rest (even standard ones) i open once every 13 days. Then i spend a good 15 minutes deciding who gets championed/farmed/duped/sold, then forget about those pending covers for next 13 days.

That sounds like a lot of fun. If I ever clear my que (not likely), I might try this.

For event tokens and vaults, does it change what you pull when the vault/store is no longer there?

shardwick

jamesh said:

Jaedenkaal said:

That's a lot of words just to say "because covers expire, but tokens do not. Also for fun"

:P

Vaults are the only reason I hoard; if the only 4* covers I could get are covers I can't use (yet) I just wait. Again, though, it's because the covers expire but the tokens don't.

So what you're saying is that they should make tokens expire too?

Don't give them any ideas.

broll

You missed one.

To irritate the devs

Pants1000

I normally don’t hoard, but I started a little CP hoard so I can afford the 250 CP 5* in HfH when one comes up that I really want.  2/5/5 OML I’m looking at you!

Bowgentle

I'm just not made for hoarding so I avoid it at all cost.
I haven't pulled LTs and CP for 17 days or so, waiting for Thor to enter, and it's killing me.
27 Latest and 1110 CP are burning holes in my pockets.

Don't even get me started on ISO. 1.4 million with nothing to spend it on.

mr_X

Obvious reason with 5s is to build a stronger 5* star team than you could otherwise. So many rosters have three 5* way stronger than anything else they have and could of had if they had not hoarded and opened latest all at once. 

Just need to look at some of new player names and their rosters that 5* players had never saw before gambit went into latest. 

Can understand why folks do this with the mess of classics. 

Calnexin

I'm generally anti-hoard.  I'm doing so now because I've finally achieved full coverage of one of the latest legends and I'm not ready to make another 5* champ.  It's not because I can't use the cover, but because by doing so I would put my MMR in a place that the rest of my roster cannot support.  So I guess you'd call that "avoidance".

maguirenumber6

I am currently hoarding because I haven't for a long time, and I thought it would be fun. Decided originally to hoard everything for two months from Oct 25th onwards, with the intention to blow the lot on Christmas Day. I had to change my plans a little, but I'm still hoarding legendaries and CP (which currently stand at 12 and 404 respectively). Looking forward to cashing all that in after the man in the red suit visits. And I don't mean Deadpool.

Jarvind

I go off and on. Right now I'm not opening LT/CP because I've got a batch of 3*s hitting max and I'm rechamping dupes. Now that I have a few workable 5*s though, once I've got an ISO buffer saved up there's no real reason to continue hoarding.

Richyyy

I was hoarding for a variety of reasons, including a couple of lame-looking 5*s that I didn't really want so I was waiting for them to get out of Latests. Now I'd be ready to cash in except for a couple of reasons: a) Lack of enough iso to champ three 5*s even if I got the covers, and b) that 25% 'glitch' for Classic LTs a little while ago. That made me think they must be at least considering upping the odds for Classics, which makes me hesitant to dump my CP hoard on Latests. All of which leaves me in a bit of a holding pattern, and continuing to hoard.

25% Classics over 15% Latests might still be a bad idea from some perspectives, but the prospect of only having 3 or 4 usable characters is part of why I haven't wanted to join the 5* tier to begin with. I'd rather use the resources on a broad base of characters if only it made some sense.

Beer40

maguirenumber6 said:

I am currently hoarding because I haven't for a long time, and I thought it would be fun. Decided originally to hoard everything for two months from Oct 25th onwards, with the intention to blow the lot on Christmas Day. I had to change my plans a little, but I'm still hoarding legendaries and CP (which currently stand at 12 and 404 respectively). Looking forward to cashing all that in after the man in the red suit visits. And I don't mean Deadpool.

I'm down with a hoard until Christmas. I've got one or two more days until I can re-champ Ares, so I think I'm going to do it starting on Friday.

Edit: And I'm talking about hoarding everything, for me.