Tipping point between farming 1*s and selling them.

Steel_Colt

Hey everyone,

I was wondering about quitting my 1* farm, since I'm slowly starting my 3* dupes and my Hero Point stash took a beating buying out some Vaults and HfH deals. 
I like looking at things objectively, so I did some math on the issue. 
At this moment, I'm working towards Shield Rank 109, which will reward 55k Iso. To level up, I need 4375 experience points. 
Since applying a 1* cover gives out 10 exp, I'd need to apply 437,5 covers for 55k Iso, or ~125 Iso per cover.

Just selling them would net me 43.750 Iso.

So I would say I haven't reached the tipping point for selling instead of farming yet. I'm also not calculating the two-power 1*s, which also give out 100 Iso once you have them at 10 covers and selling/restarting them. 

Am I missing something, or does this sound right? Does anyone know the actual tipping point? Which Shield Rank would that be?

The_A_Train

Calculate iso per exp point and sell them when you're no longer getting at least 10 iso per exp point. 

Steel_Colt

Indirectly, that's what I did. It's now around 12,5 Iso per exp, without counting the two-power 1* covers 100 Iso sell-price after max-covering.
Seems I'm still on the good side of the calculation. 

Quebbster

I don't farm onestars myself, but I did see someone mention that the breakeven Point is somewhere around level 177. So you probably have a long way to go Before it is unprofitable.

bluewolf

My approach is farm some, sell some,  just do what you want. End of the day, are you hurting that much for iso?  Are you stressing in the final hours to save covers?  If not, just do what you enjoy.  If farming 1’s seems cumbersome and like a waste of time, just stop. 

It’s been said a million times, but it’s still just a game.  It should be mostly fun.

Steel_Colt

I'm not stressing about it, and if the time comes that I'm out of Hero Points and I need a spot for dupe 3*s, then the farm will be harvested and restarted once I do have enough HP once again.
Thanks for the insight guys. 

PenniesForEveryone

When you start to feel like it's a waste of time that you could spend earning the same rewards faster is about when the tipping point happens anyway.

Eichen

If you haven't figured out yet it is better to rotate your 1*s than it is to sell them.  What I mean is, on the ones that have three colors, get them to thirteen covers and then just keep switching out which color has 5 covers each time.  This gets you the points without ever having to sell the character and makes the chore of farming faster.  The two color characters you do have to sell at ten covers.  

Phumade

at rank165.  You need 8500 xp to progress to 166.  The iso reward for 166 is 87,500.  So technically, the mathematical tipping point is past 166.  I think its actualy aounrd 170ish.

Daiches

Around level 100 playing a single PVP match Will get you more iso/time spent

Punter1

My 2c

XP is finite, ISO is infinite. 

By farming through 1*s your accelerating your way through a finite resource using an infinite resource. 

Now the end of the finite resource is a long way away for most and likely may never be reached if they extend the level cap again, but it technically exists.  That coupled with the bit of extra hassle on the whole managing a 1* farm means it's a no-brainer to me to sell 1*s for iso.  You'll get the iso from leveling up anyway just slightly slower and from selling.

Steel_Colt

Eichen said:

If you haven't figured out yet it is better to rotate your 1*s than it is to sell them.  What I mean is, on the ones that have three colors, get them to thirteen covers and then just keep switching out which color has 5 covers each time.  This gets you the points without ever having to sell the character and makes the chore of farming faster.  The two color characters you do have to sell at ten covers.  

I know this, that's what I meant by two-power characters.

SymmeTrey

In addition to the raw "XP-to-ISO" ratio, there is another factor to consider... I often earn 1000+ XP, per Shield Rank, from flipping 1 stars. Ever time you clear a sub, that's 9 standards. I get 1 or 2 standards from each Lightning Round. It's a lot of 1-star covers coming through at 10 XP each.

That 1,000 XP not only "converts" to ISO in the Shield Rank reward, it also gets me to the rest of the reward (the part not covered by the conversion) faster... probably several days faster.

Multiply that across many days and weeks climbing through multiple Shield Ranks and it's easy to imagine being several Shield Ranks ahead over time by simply flipping your 1 stars. Yes, you come out ahead in your ISO conversion, but, you can also easily be tens or hundreds of thousands of ISO ahead by unlocking the "unconverted XP" more quickly.

Some will say "one day you will hit the Shield Rank cap and then you will stop earning Shield Rank ISO". In theory, that's true. In practice, by the time you hit Rank 200, you will probably be post-ISO or you will quit before then. Or, the max might even increase again. For me, I'd rather get more ISO faster to help with my dire ISO crunch.

All that being said... if you think flipping 1's is boring or don't like it, just don't do it. It's one of those "small edge" advantages that build up over time, but, it certainly doesn't cripple you if you don't do it.

Pongie

Steel_Colt said:

Eichen said:

If you haven't figured out yet it is better to rotate your 1*s than it is to sell them.  What I mean is, on the ones that have three colors, get them to thirteen covers and then just keep switching out which color has 5 covers each time.  This gets you the points without ever having to sell the character and makes the chore of farming faster.  The two color characters you do have to sell at ten covers.  

I know this, that's what I meant by two-power characters.

I don’t bother farming jugg and mbw. The first I have levelled for ddq and I don’t want to sell by accident. The second I have 5x 5blue for teamups and training her is a pain. Yelena and venom are the only 2 colours I farm. Delays the eventual cap (if ever so slightly)

nigelregal

Punter1 said:

My 2c

XP is finite, ISO is infinite. 

By farming through 1*s your accelerating your way through a finite resource using an infinite resource. 

Now the end of the finite resource is a long way away for most and likely may never be reached if they extend the level cap again, but it technically exists.  That coupled with the bit of extra hassle on the whole managing a 1* farm means it's a no-brainer to me to sell 1*s for iso.  You'll get the iso from leveling up anyway just slightly slower and from selling.

This is reason I am not doing it. As well I just don't want to invest the time into doing it. 

jamesh

Punter1 said:

My 2c

XP is finite, ISO is infinite. 

By farming through 1*s your accelerating your way through a finite resource using an infinite resource. 

Now the end of the finite resource is a long way away for most and likely may never be reached if they extend the level cap again, but it technically exists.  That coupled with the bit of extra hassle on the whole managing a 1* farm means it's a no-brainer to me to sell 1*s for iso.  You'll get the iso from leveling up anyway just slightly slower and from selling.

When deciding whether XP is finite or not, some things worth keeping in mind:

1. The devs have increased the level cap in the past when people started hitting it.  Is there any reason to believe that won't happen again when people approach the current cap?  And when it happened in the past, it turned out the game was recording experience earned past the cap and credited it to players when the cap was raised.
   
2. The game will probably become unprofitable and close up shop at some point.  Are you likely to hit the level cap before that happens?
   

Daredevil217

Wait, is farming 2-ability characters iso positive as well? You are giving up 1,000 iso every flip not selling those covers outright. Shifting the powers on the 3-ability characters you don’t have that problem after the initial 1,300 iso investment. I actually might start doing just those. My shield rank is moving at a snails pace. 

jamesh

Daredevil217 said:

Wait, is farming 2-ability characters iso positive as well? You are giving up 1,000 iso every flip not selling those covers outright. Shifting the powers on the 3-ability characters you don’t have that problem after the initial 1,300 iso investment. I actually might start doing just those. My shield rank is moving at a snails pace. 

Isn't it basically the same?  For a three-power 1* character where you just continually spend covers to change the power distribution, you're trading 100 iso for 10 XP.

For a 2 power character, it'd go something like this:

• first cover used to recruit character giving 0 XP (you only get recruitment XP the first time)
• next 9 covers net 10 XP each for training powers
• finally, sell the character for 100 iso

So rather than getting 1000 iso for selling the covers outright, you get 90 XP and 100 iso.  So you've traded 900 iso for 90 XP, which is the same rate as before.

The only real difference is that you're less likely to have (temporarily) unusable covers sitting in your queue for 3 power characters.

Phumade

jamesh said:

Daredevil217 said:

Wait, is farming 2-ability characters iso positive as well? You are giving up 1,000 iso every flip not selling those covers outright. Shifting the powers on the 3-ability characters you don’t have that problem after the initial 1,300 iso investment. I actually might start doing just those. My shield rank is moving at a snails pace. 

Isn't it basically the same?  For a three-power 1* character where you just continually spend covers to change the power distribution, you're trading 100 iso for 10 XP.

For a 2 power character, it'd go something like this:

• first cover used to recruit character giving 0 XP (you only get recruitment XP the first time)
• next 9 covers net 10 XP each for training powers
• finally, sell the character for 100 iso

So rather than getting 1000 iso for selling the covers outright, you get 90 XP and 100 iso.  So you've traded 900 iso for 90 XP, which is the same rate as before.

The only real difference is that you're less likely to have (temporarily) unusable covers sitting in your queue for 3 power characters.

The other thing your missing as well @daredevil is that you don't level the 1* with iso.

1* farming in contrast to 2*, 3*, 4* farm doesn't require you to actually level the chars.  Your just apply the covers and the sell either the 10 cover or 13 cover shell.