New Feature - Saved Covers *Updated (6/19/18)

maguirenumber6

Do the saved covers have an expiry date, like normal covers waiting "on the vine"?

Bryan Lambert

The changes to four-star odds, and now this, make it clear that someone at D3 thinks that too many players have figured out the system and that that’s bad for them.

First, CS cover swaps have been around so long that they need to be considered part of the game economy. I mean, heck, I finally managed to take advantage of them in the last six months or so, and all I pay for is VIP. 

Under the old system, players could stay “caught up” with new releases. They could fully cover both five-stars and four-stars before they left Latest Legends tokens with minimal to no spending. Again, I know, because I did it. I “caught up” to latest 4’s just through play, to the point where Blonde Widow was the only 4 I needed covers for at the time of the odds shift. I was staying caught up with the 5’s too - got my Jessica Jones to 5-2-5 (thanks to a cover swap) before the next 5 was even announced. 

The clear intent of these changes is to change this status quo while throwing small bones (“increased” 4-star odds, saved covers) to players to soften the blow as they adjust the in-game economy. If D3 thinkks that’s not their intent, they need to take another look at their recent choices, because that’s certainly the effect it’ll have.

And that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. But everyone should be clear that that’s what’s happening and adjust their play style, goals, and spending habits accordingly. Me I may get out of the “chase the latest 5’s” game entirely. With a large backlog of pre-Gambit 5-stars in a woefully undercovered state, I might have more fun chasing the backlog at 20CP each. The only risk I’d be running is a new 5-star replacing Gambit in the PvP meta, ruining PvP for me again, but I can live with that.

Player1575

@Brigby what was the dev's thought process in not allowing us to bank covers for a character at 13 covers but not champed?

I ask because the main bottleneck in this game is ISO and its not always possible to get a 4* or 5* champed to save the cover, especially if you have 2-3 different 4s with a cover on the vine. You're guaranteed to lose one in that situation. This system could have been perfect to alleviate that problem and allow us to champ 2-3 4s withoutosing any of the covers. 

jackstar0

Player1575 said:

@Brigby what was the dev's thought process in not allowing us to bank covers for a character at 13 covers but not champed?

I ask because the main bottleneck in this game is ISO and its not always possible to get a 4* or 5* champed to save the cover, especially if you have 2-3 different 4s with a cover on the vine. You're guaranteed to lose one in that situation. This system could have been perfect to alleviate that problem and allow us to champ 2-3 4s withoutosing any of the covers. 

While I don't have the iso problem anymore, this is a great point. I hope that characters with 13 covers can still save covers, otherwise it becomes a trick of trying to save covers and leave some on the vine as long as possible.

Though reading things, I get the impression that if you already have 5 covers saved and get the 13th, those 5 will wait there while you save up iso to champ.

But it seems possible that the save feature won't allow someone with 0-4 covers to save additional covers pre-champing... but maybe it will?

Player1575

Brigby already said it won't work earlier. I mainly ask because I still have about a dozen 4*s unchamped, and in the past I've had to waste covers for some of my 4s because I'd pull 3 tokens over the span of a day or two and end up getting a cover of 3 different 4s I already have at 13 covers. Obviously I'm not going to get 1M iso in 14 days, so now I have to decide which to champ and which to sell.

This system could have alleviated that problem completely, but for some reason it can't be used with a character already at 13 covers. 

killerkoala

instead of programing this why not code colorless covers

HoundofShadow

Because this is targeted at players who have cover wastage due to imperfect distribution, rather than players who have perfect cover distribution but have cover wastage due to lack of iso-8. I believe one of the Devs already mentioned their targeted segments.

Oh, great. Now I’m going to pull Red cover 9 for my 5/3/1 America Chavez even *more* easily.
Nothing to announce right this moment, but that sort of situation is something we are directly looking at in our latest design rounds.

As for colourless covers, the devs mentioned in the past that the whole code need to be rewritten and it would take at least six months.

smkspy

Player1575 said:

Brigby already said it won't work earlier. I mainly ask because I still have about a dozen 4*s unchamped, and in the past I've had to waste covers for some of my 4s because I'd pull 3 tokens over the span of a day or two and end up getting a cover of 3 different 4s I already have at 13 covers. Obviously I'm not going to get 1M iso in 14 days, so now I have to decide which to champ and which to sell.

This system could have alleviated that problem completely, but for some reason it can't be used with a character already at 13 covers. 

Not can't, won't. They didn't want to code it that way, so they didn't. Simple as that, they still want the iso crunch that may entice people to buy iso to keep covers from expiring.

Ptahhotep

If I have a character at, say, 5/5/2 and have both a useable and a not useable cover on the vine will I be able to save the not useable  cover first, before applying the useable cover, or will the useable cover make the character fully covered and prevent saving?

broll

Ptahhotep said:

If I have a character at, say, 5/5/2 and have both a useable and a not useable cover on the vine will I be able to save the not useable  cover first, before applying the useable cover, or will the useable cover make the character fully covered and prevent saving?

Good question.

Similar question.  If I hit 5 saved and I have 5/5/2 am I forced to trade or can I choose to roll the dice on saving those 5 instead of saving them?

Brigby

sirwookieechris said:

Thanos said:

I'm surprised nobody asked this but how long can you save the covers for?  Also, 5 to 1 is complete garbage, disappointing but expected i suppose.

I took it to read that you keep them until either a) you champ then, in which they convert into champ levels or b) you trade the five covers in for one cover in a color you can use.

Correct me if I am wrong Brigby?

You're correct! Saved Covers do not expire, once they've been Saved. The two scenarios you mentioned are the only ways of consuming them.

wymtime said:

Brigby if I have 2 covers expiring on Monday will there be a way to convert them into saved covers compared to them expiring and getting iso?

Apologies, but unless the R155 build is updated prior to your covers expiring, then I don't see any way to save them for the Saved Covers feature

IceIX

talleman said:

Will this mean no more Hero for Hire offer?

There are no current plans to change the HfH offer, system.

Ptahhotep said:

If I have a character at, say, 5/5/2 and have both a useable and a not useable cover on the vine will I be able to save the not useable  cover first, before applying the useable cover, or will the useable cover make the character fully covered and prevent saving?

Save the unusable cover first, then Train with the usable. Once you hit 13 powers, the Save option for that character becomes unavailable.

Jaedenkaal

IceIX said:

talleman said:

Will this mean no more Hero for Hire offer?

There are no current plans to change the HfH offer, system.

maguirenumber6 said:

Do the saved covers have an expiry date, like normal covers waiting "on the vine"?

No, they stay saved forever (or at least, till used)

Ptahhotep said:

If I have a character at, say, 5/5/2 and have both a useable and a not useable cover on the vine will I be able to save the not useable  cover first, before applying the useable cover, or will the useable cover make the character fully covered and prevent saving?

Save the unusable cover first, then Train with the usable. Once you hit 13 powers, the Save option for that character becomes unavailable.

Isn’t it a little weird that you can only save covers on a fully-cover s character some of th time? Seems like more effort than it’s worth to prevent people from banking 5 covers on fully-covered characters -some- of the time. 

Now it it seems like the “correct” thing to do is get a character to 12/13, then bank 4-5 covers, and then finally fully cover them.

broll

Jaedenkaal said:

IceIX said:

talleman said:

Will this mean no more Hero for Hire offer?

There are no current plans to change the HfH offer, system.

maguirenumber6 said:

Do the saved covers have an expiry date, like normal covers waiting "on the vine"?

No, they stay saved forever (or at least, till used)

Ptahhotep said:

If I have a character at, say, 5/5/2 and have both a useable and a not useable cover on the vine will I be able to save the not useable  cover first, before applying the useable cover, or will the useable cover make the character fully covered and prevent saving?

Save the unusable cover first, then Train with the usable. Once you hit 13 powers, the Save option for that character becomes unavailable.

Isn’t it a little weird that you can only save covers on a fully-cover s character some of th time? Seems like more effort than it’s worth to prevent people from banking 5 covers on fully-covered characters -some- of the time. 

Now it it seems like the “correct” thing to do is get a character to 12/13, then bank 4-5 covers, and then finally fully cover them.

It's not some of the time.  If you don't apply the 13th cover, then it's not 13 covered.  If you throw away 5 covers that would get you to 13 for some reason the game doesn't consider that 13 covered, it only works if you apply them.

It's the same (but reverse) as if you have 2 covers on the vine for a 12 covered, 1 usable and 1 not.  The unusable cover can't be consider a champ level until you apply the usable (and champ the character).  This is the reverse where you can save the unusable until you use the usable.

Jaedenkaal

Yeah, but for example, the fully-covered (not-champed) characters I already have.

What I mean is, you can only have saved covers on a 13/13 character if they got there before. Once they’re fully covered, you can’t add to the stored covers. That last part seems like a needless restriction to me.

IceIX

Jaedenkaal said:

Isn’t it a little weird that you can only save covers on a fully-cover s character some of th time? Seems like more effort than it’s worth to prevent people from banking 5 covers on fully-covered characters -some- of the time. 

Now it it seems like the “correct” thing to do is get a character to 12/13, then bank 4-5 covers, and then finally fully cover them.

The system is designed to ameliorate poor luck in covering characters, not to provide a sort of Champion bank. That portion of the feature is more of an added bonus, since we didn't want you to just lose those covers if you picked up that last color while you stocked 5 otherwise.

Jaedenkaal

IceIX said:

Jaedenkaal said:

Isn’t it a little weird that you can only save covers on a fully-cover s character some of th time? Seems like more effort than it’s worth to prevent people from banking 5 covers on fully-covered characters -some- of the time. 

Now it it seems like the “correct” thing to do is get a character to 12/13, then bank 4-5 covers, and then finally fully cover them.

The system is designed to ameliorate poor luck in covering characters, not to provide a sort of Champion bank. That portion of the feature is more of an added bonus, since we didn't want you to just lose those covers if you picked up that last color while you stocked 5 otherwise.

Yeah I understand the purpose of the feature, but in execution it just seems like a strange distinction to make. I mean, it’s only 5 covers, and you can do it anyways if you want to. (For characters who aren’t fully covered yet)

JHawkInc

Man, so much outrage over a 5:1 trade that, honestly, I don't think I'd ever use.

If this system were retroactive for 5*s, I'd save every wasted 5* cover I've ever pulled, and wouldn't have enough Save covers to even consider a trade.

Coincidentally, I know a new player who's in a position to Save a couple 2*s when this feature comes out, and he's excited for it.

But no, the 5:1 trade (that you won't even need a significant amount of the time thanks to the Save cover feature) is evil, and it's totally valid to insult the devs for improving the game for the entire playerbase (including the grumpy Gary's who hate the trade rate). You guys are ridiculous.

Pantherfan1973

You can't see me but I'm doing my happy dance.  Looking forward to implementation. 

KC_Hammer

Personally I love this change. Though I wish it had come out a week earlier cause I just had to sell a handful of 4* and 5* covers. It sucks that some people are unhappy about it but it seems like a good change for most of the player base.