The effects of vaulting & Bonus Heroes – how did your roster fare?

Phumade

Kishida said:

Vaulting had some great unforeseeable benefits only apparent in retrospect. The biggest one was the addition of champ rewards giving up 5* covers. If you're packing levels on to mediocre characters, 5* covers really helps to take away the sting.

None of that was unforseeable.  It was explained many times by many different forum posters and the game designer in his interview post on why accelerating the newest ( / most powerful 4*) was going to:

1.  enable newer rosters to compete faster with established palyers.

2.  provide a focused method to accelerated a specific char.


Maybe the only unforseen consequence is the forums habit to undervalue newer release chars because they don't see the actual play results when those chars are boosted to 450+.

But its pretty obvious now that there was a break in 4* design where the top end of the level curve is even more PRONOUNCED for new release 4* when compared to antique 4* like a HB.

There is a real and noticeable power difference for new chars after 350.  They can easily mix and match into 5* combos vs a 450 XFWolverine still plays like junik

jtsings

  I really would have to say I had a very ideal situation happen to me regarding vaulting.  I came into the game when vaulting, I guess, had just started and it really, really helped me get started in the right direction.  I was able to get the vaulted 3*s championed fairly quickly and I was very fortunate to open a legendary token horde right before vaulting was ended.  Vaulting helped also in allowing me to keep my roster slots in check, even though I did buy HP when there was a good deal or the minimum $2 to get the added shield support HP.  It gave me a good introduction to the game and it helped me to progress enough to where I could be somewhat competitive in PVE and PVP.  Then when I had most of the latest 12 well covered, it was nice to get the older covers because I wanted to participate in the Clash and Behemith Burrito in DDQ and unvaulting was vital in doing that.

  Now, I don't know how new players are dealing with everything and I would not like to be in their shoes.  I see people on the forums trying to make decisions on keeping just ok 3*s and really just having a mess of a roster with really no chance of being competitive in PVE or PVP.  Bonus heroes are great but if you don't do well in PVP or PVE you don't get the tokens to advance your roster.  Scaling in PVE also has hurt these players too because they are forced to play in lower SCL's because it's impossible to reach the same level they could have if scaling was still in place.  It seems to me that things are much slower and I can see how new players can be very unmotivated unless they have lots of patience, lots of luck in RNG for good characters, lots of luck in bonus heroes or put lots of money in the game.

  Honestly, I'm pretty sure they've done away with vaulting for good but I would definitely see it in D3s interest to maybe make a shield rank level vaulting situation happen, if possible.  Maybe when you reach, let's say Rank 40, you lose vaulting and what we have now would kick in.  It seems to me that would help motivate a new player to keep playing the game.  They would still have to pay for roster slots because the covers come in faster than you can roster even with vaulting and they would have a much better chance of furthering their roster this way.  I know that the 3X odds are supposed to work in the players favor but I would have to say in my experience it seems like I get more classic 3 or 4* characters than the 3X characters which, for me, is ok, but I'm sure is frustrating for a new player who has limited roster slots.  Maybe the new player is doing fine with unvaulting but it seems to me, looking from the outside, that it's a much longer journey to a good starting point nowadays.

 

Pants1000

Vaulting didn’t affect how many 4’s I champed, just the order that I did it.  Some are level 280 that would be 300, and vice-versa.

The biggest difference is with bonus heroes.  I have had Peggy as my only BH most of the time.  Without BH she’d probably be around 290.  Instead she just hit 350!

beyonderbub

Vaulting made me the man I am today. Thanks Vaulting!!!

PenniesForEveryone

Daredevil217 said:

I absolutely hated vaulting and was probably its biggest critic.  I hated the idea of 80% of the 4* tier locked away.  Just a dumb idea when you are trying to get new players into the game and when having every character is so key to success in MPQ.

As far as my roster, I was right in that 4* transition.  I had a smattering of 4* champs, but had gotten to a point where most of my non-champed characters were in that 8-13 cover range and I could champ them as the covers came.  Dilution allowed the covers to roll in evenly and I was champing them as they came.  I loved it.

Once vaulting came, all that progress stopped.  However, I did make progress on my latest 12 but very quickly had to stop pulling because I did not have the iso to champ all these new characters coming at such a fast rate.  So where most players rosters exploded and hoards were cracked, I was doing the opposite, and STILL tossing 4* covers like hotcakes.

I hit a point where I could hit 900 PVP and T5 or T10 PVE consistently.  What that means is I was getting 1 cover per PVP and anywhere from 3-5 in PVE every event.  So without even opening tokens, I was getting covers faster than I could champ them.  And with most of my characters hovering around max-covers anyway, I was at no shortage of characters needing to be champed.  Vaulting or no vaulting, it didn't matter, because I was earning covers so fast, and doing it at a rate my iso couldn't keep up with.

Through all this unintentional hoarding, I was able to amass a hoard of LT and CP.  I eventually cracked it and was able to max-cover both Daredevil (my favorite hero ever) and Gambit (the best character in the game).  Both sit at 255 but I got them.

I honestly think this new setup is perfect with the 50/50 Classic/Latest split.  For new players and vets alike.  New players can max-cover newer characters and be somewhat competitive, but still have an avenue to older characters as well for things like Crash, Burrito, and Essentials where you don't need a champ to compete, but having at least some covers will open up doors for you.

Currently I have 51 champed 4s.  Only Chavez and Kraven are unchamped from latest (and Chavez is level 209).  I've again began hoarding because I'm still tossing 4* covers I'm earning like hotcakes and have about half of my 3* all approaching that level where dupes need to be champed and I just can't keep up with both.  So I'm not opening any tokens except standards and am just focusing on rechamping the 3* tier.  I may divert from this if say I top 10 a PVE that rewards a 4* character I have 13 covers for. But for the most part, the focus is on 3s and rebuilding the 2farm I demolished chasing Gambit and DD.  I currently have 5936 CP, 12 LT, 61 Heroics, and 121 Elites.  One of my taco vaults is over 300 pulls as well.  And I have a smattering of tokens from different events (sometimes I open those, sometimes I don't). 

TL;DR - "Vaulting sucked because I refused to adapt and elected not to utilize it."

ZootSax

Vaulting and BH were pretty good to me.  Prior to vaulting, I had three 4* champs--Devil Dinosaur, Nick Fury and Star Lord.  With that group, PVP was unplayable outside of the Anniversary week or if SL was boosted, as MMR apparently doesn't account for boosted levels for some reason.

My strategy during vaulting was to target vaulted 4*'s with 10+ covers with BH, sell 1-3 cover vaulted 4*'s I didn't much care for to save HP from roster slots and use the surplus HP for HfH offers on vaulted characters.  Because vaulting ended so quickly, this loss of older 4*'s somewhat backfired, but I still had 10-12 champed 4*'s by the time vaulting ended and PVP was doable once 4Thor became my 4th champ during the first season of vaulting.  Ironically, a majority of my new champed characters during vaulting were NOT the "latest 12", although Mordo ended up as my highest non-Dinosaur 4* character.  The latest characters had also largely caught up to the 8-12 covers many of my other 4*'s had, at least making most playable.

Since vaulting ended, I'm drawing non-latest-12 characters at somewhere between two and three times the rate of the latest 12.  While this had brought me to 26 4* champs, it's also left some of the newer characters in the dust (Nico still only has the 1 cover from PVE progression, Lockjaw is stuck at four covers-two from PVE progression, MEHulk is at 4 covers-2 from PVE progression,Nightcrawler will be at 5-6 after the current boss--all but two from PVE progression, Rogue has 5--two from PVE, one from 12 Days of Marvel, one from Gambit and only one from tokens).  I plan to use Nico as my BH once I champ a couple characters at 12 covers, so hopefully that will help, but that's only one character.  While Hulk, Rogue and Nightcrawler have time, I'd be genuinely surprised if I champed Lockjaw before he left latest.  

All in all, I'm satisfied with the current tokens, but given the option, I'd go back to vaulting without hesitation.  

shardwick

Custom packs was my answer to vaulting and it's still my answer. Instead of giving a bonus draw rate to the latest 12 the user gets to pick their favorite 12. Need to champ America or just want to beef her up more? Make her one of your 12. You would still be able to draw the other characters too. Then when you're done with America switch her out for someone else like you do with bonus heroes. Such an easy solution to me.

justsing

Vaulting helped me jump into 4* land and champ 4*s much quicker than I would have pre-vaulting. However, I’m a fan of the current system where you have greater odds of pulling the latest 4*s but can still also pull the classic 4*s. While BHs did help me cover a few (2-3?) 4*s, the current system has helped even more. 

Vaulting was probably better for newer rosters who had limited roster slots because they could just focus on the latest 4*s and chosen 3*s. It was also good for people who wanted tons of champ levels for the latest 4*s. But for champing more 4*s, particularly the older ones, the current system is better imo

GibbletsGrabber

Personally I benefited greatly from 12 only vaults.

I championed Medusa very early and enjoyed levelling her to 370. This was very useful when she started feeding Black Bolt. Making him lv452 overnight. 

The 12 vault ones were always my first to champ, no matter how unpopular they were. Agent Venom and Mordo are lv350ish and when boosted very deadly now.
And off course high CP rewards they pay now are very nice.

 In a way I miss the acceleration,even though at expense of classic, but it was certainly creating unbalanced rosters all across the player base.

Taganov

I was transitioning to 4* when vaulting hit, and it sped the process up considerably. Yes, I had limited access to classic 4s, but the only one I recall being worth anything was Peggy.

With the exception of the likes of Kraven and Nico, the latest 4s have completely been worth the chase, and noticeably strengthen your roster. Classic 4s (and 5s) are really showing their age.

turbomoose

I didn’t like vaulting as I had a lot of the older characters under covered but I got lucky with the new characters, champing Grocket gamora medusa mordo cap marvel and coulson 

bonus heroes worked quite well for me as I targeted one at a time, seems they have slowed up quite a lot lately 

i feel that vaulting has made the game boring for pvp as once you get to 450 points all you see is medusa gamora and Grocket teams, I confess I use this team myself so I suspect a nerf will come eventually 

i think there will come a time when they retire some of the “classic “ characters 

i don’t think I would want a return to vaulting even though I now have every 4* champed apart from 3 older characters and the most recent few 

DarthDeVo

When they announced vaulting, I was not looking forward to it. I had just finished rostering all the 4*s available at the time and was getting ready to start that transition. I had one 4* champ (Medusa) and thought that having 75 percent of the entire tier completely shut off would hurt my roster development. 

As vaulting continued, I slowly began changing my mind. I was more or less hoarding, yet with the Latest characters featured so heavily in placement and progression, I was steadily champing 4*s and getting the occasional Classic character covered when they were featured or through Bonus Heroes. 

I'm currently sitting at 43 champed 4*s, with 10 more fully covered and waiting on ISO. All the rest have at least 10 covers, except for Nico (nine covers) and Kraven (three covers).

Rockwell75

I have been playing for just about a year and vaulting hit right as I was starting to roster 4s.  I wasn't sure what to make of it at first and initially I was a little bummed that so many of the characters were cut off from me, however in retrospect vaulting helped me get my first 4s leveled and champed a lot sooner than would have otherwise been possible and once I got a toehold in 4* land everything got easier and more fun...so while I like the new system better the vaulting era was very much a boon for me.

Black Duke

Vaulting encouraged me to champion the newest 4* characters as soon as they hit the tokens.
My goal: I wanted to have all latest 12 4* characters championed at the point when I drop my hoard.

Since unvaulting I´ve gradually lost my motivation to champion the latest 12 (Nightcrawler, MEHulk, Nico, Chavez and Kraven are still unchampioned) so I´ve put my ISO into my "classic" 4* characters instead (only Sam Wilson & TA Hulk are left).   

sandalsnopants

Vaulting helped me get my first 4* champ quicker than I otherwise would have, but it completely unbalanced my 3* roster that I was still working on at the time, and it caused a serious ISO crunch.  I hated it.  I had been playing for less than a year, was pretty happy with my progress, my 4* characters were gaining covers at a somewhat similar rate, and I used my ISO whenever I gained a new cover usually, and I was happy with how everything was going.  Vaulting introduced me to hoarding by necessity, which I don't love, but as I'm now well into 4* land and have my first 5* champ, I get it's a practical part of the game.

Jarvind

I mean, I didn't really keep a written record or anything, but I have a bunch of 4*s released in the last ~8 months that are 300+ or 310+, meanwhile characters like Miles or War Machine who were champed way before that are still lingering at 285 or so. It's goofy.

Pwuz_

I’m not sure how accurate a comparison these time periods are as there are more than a few tweaks that have made it much easier to collect CP, Legendary Tokens, and more opportunities to “buy” specific covers (Hero’s for Hire.)

Due to the HUGE influx of CP, I’ve found my 4* characters getting to max covers much more quickly, and I’ve got more than a couple 5* closing in on usability.  My 5* for the most part no longer feel like the 3rd wheel on their required nodes (well except my Black only Gambit, but RNGesus has been kind since then.)

That said I don’t think things are perfect by any means.  I’m reluctant to set anything as a bonus hero that has 5 in any ability because there is no way to ensure that your occasional bonus cover will not end up being that ability you can’t use yet.  The number of 4* that I’ve had built to 0/5/5 has been particularly frustrating.

I really think that the game should let us apply a 6th cover for any ability to that character and just randomly assign it to another ability.  No muss, no fuss, no email to Customer Support.