Am I doing something wrong to be so starved for iso?

froggerjohn

I now have 45 4* characters with 13+ covers (many of those, more than 10 saved covers), but no iso to champ them. Is that normal for this game?

I'm roughly 13mil iso in the hole, which seems like a huge amount. I know the cost of iso in the store is absurd, but just as a matter of perspective, that's over $16,000 in the game economy. And that's not even counting 20 or so 3* dupes also awaiting champing (and will only grow larger), nor any of the 5* tier, where I have several at 11-12 covers now, but not even contemplating champing those. 

I hear about people being post-iso crunch after 4 years (including spending iso on 5* champs!), but at 680 days in myself, and still getting further behind, there's no way I'll be even close to that path two years from now. Where am I going wrong?

I'm playing PvE usually to t10, and sometimes t5.
I'm playing PvP to 900+.
I play at least some LRs each week to 250-ish.
DDQ every day

I did level a number of 5* characters to around 270-275, a couple to 290, and no one above that. Not a huge expense there.

For awhile I was buying AP boosts when I ran America in PvE, but no longer have to do that with Grocket/Juggs. 
Occasionally I still run America with boosts in PvP, but at 25-30 matches, that's 3000 iso, and not every event.
Nothing that encroaches on the millions in deficit.

Am I missing something?

tupacboy

Dang that's a dope roster at that many days.... Maybe suffering from overachievement?  

HoundofShadow

We are entering the different stages of MPQ. My POV:

In 1-star to 3-star land, players lack HP, but they are not lacking iso-8.They don't
really use CPs.

In deep 4-star land, players don't really need HP but they need iso-8 and CPs.

In 5-star land, they will be swimming in iso-8 and HP. They need only CPs.

Players who don't need any of the above are likely players who left MPQ.

I'm lacking tons of iso-8 at the moment.

KGB

You are roughly 2 years into the game and making tremendous progress roster wise. When I was 2 years into the game I was in late 3* land and my 4* only had 1-3 covers each.

As a late 4* player about 4.5 years into the game I have 5 million ISO. I could use that to champ the final 20ish 4* characters (the trash tier) that sit at 209 but I'm saving it for the 5* tier which I haven't leveled yet.

Believe me, playing the way you are (which is exactly what I play) you will eventually get there. It's just a long slow progress of turning over farms and collecting ISO from events. In reality, all those 4*s don't matter much beyond the T20 that do matter. You eventually just champ them for 4* farming sake.

KGB

spidyjedi84

froggerjohn said:

I now have 45 4* characters with 13+ covers (many of those, more than 10 saved covers), but no iso to champ them. Is that normal for this game?

I'm roughly 13mil iso in the hole, which seems like a huge amount. I know the cost of iso in the store is absurd, but just as a matter of perspective, that's over $16,000 in the game economy. And that's not even counting 20 or so 3* dupes also awaiting champing (and will only grow larger), nor any of the 5* tier, where I have several at 11-12 covers now, but not even contemplating champing those. 

I hear about people being post-iso crunch after 4 years (including spending iso on 5* champs!), but at 680 days in myself, and still getting further behind, there's no way I'll be even close to that path two years from now. Where am I going wrong?

I'm playing PvE usually to t10, and sometimes t5.
I'm playing PvP to 900+.
I play at least some LRs each week to 250-ish.
DDQ every day

I did level a number of 5* characters to around 270-275, a couple to 290, and no one above that. Not a huge expense there.

For awhile I was buying AP boosts when I ran America in PvE, but no longer have to do that with Grocket/Juggs. 
Occasionally I still run America with boosts in PvP, but at 25-30 matches, that's 3000 iso, and not every event.
Nothing that encroaches on the millions in deficit.

Am I missing something?

Nope, not doing anything wrong. What Shield Clearance Level are you playing at to get top 10 finishes?

My roster now has a lot of champs, but that's been a lot of grinding for ISO to get there and focus on one 4 star to champ at a time. I'm now down to 4 champable 4 stars, and two I'm going to be targeting covers for. Deadpool gives me ~7,000 a day, PVE initial 4 clears and progression generating roughly 10,000 a Day in ISO. PVP I don't get a lot of ISO, but a fair amount of covers, and then 2 star farms give 3 stars that feed those characters that are champed. I only use that ISO generated from selling the farm to champ other 2 stars and keep farm characters going. I'm 1400 days in, and haven't touched champing too many of my 5 stars yet. I generate plenty of CP and HP via farming and placement/progression in many events.

it's a long part of the game that's only gotten longer if you're champing all 4 stars. After I champ these last 4 4-stars, I'm probably going to champ the 10 3 stars on my roster with a lot of saved covers and then hoard ISO for getting ready to champ some 5 stars.

bluewolf

Back when I rose through the 4 tier....about 3 years ago is when I started champing the 4 tier, about a year later I champed my first 5....that year of champing 4's was one of prioritizing and holding 3* covers to avoid triggering 4's and things like that.  But there were a lot less 4's then so it took a lot less iso.

I don't remember when I went post-iso but I was pretty deep into champed 5's when I got there, sometime last year maybe?  Now I have almost 10 million.

All that aside, to come into the 4 tier means needing approx 32 million iso or so if you started today.  My guesstimate for iso is 50K a day if you play hard, since some days you get almost none (hello, 48 hour subs) and some days you get a lot more (LR's anyone?).

If you hit 50 K a day and only used it for the 4 tier, it would be about 640 days of playing, so close to 2 years.  To say nothing of dupes and leveling 5's and all that.

One thing you definitely should do is be part of a solid alliance, that can help a lot.  But you're not doing anything wrong, the game is just a massive iso pit now.  88 4's and 39 5's along with all the 2's and 3's and dupes in those tiers.

jredd

eventually you'll catch up. i'm on day 1846 with 9 mill iso. 

froggerjohn

Thanks for all the notes.

I spent a fair amount of money on the game (SHIELD packs, and most of the Chain), which is a detail I forgot to mention, and likely a big part of why my progress in covers may exceed the amount of iso I'd ordinarily have to champ those covers. (If I acquired the same covers over more time, I'd have more iso).

I'm pretty well set on the "4*s that matter", but I was reading some other threads about rewards, and it seemed like I was out of place for some reason.

Also just remembered one other detail, which is that I started playing PvP relatively late, due to a misunderstanding and poor experience early on, and so I just avoided it. So that accounts for a portion of the lost resources as well.

I play SCL7, and sometimes SCL8. I can usually get t10 in SCL8, but have to catch a good flip, and even then, work pretty hard at it. I've played SCL9 a few times, usually by accident or catching a last-day flip. It's actually really fun at that level, but takes too long, and placement is of course difficult. 

froggerjohn

No, I usually join within the first day. 

I'm SHIELD rank 134.

tiomono

I would say do not be afraid to flip your 2*'s as soon as you have a cover to replace the max champ. I also sell off my 3*'s as soon as my backup has one cover. Once you have a few meta pairs the 2* or 3* is just dead weight in most cases anyway.

The downside to this is I will get less retroactive rewards when the new champ reward update hits. I am at scl 158 and have 11 5*'s champed all but 8 4*'s champed. All my 3*'s are currently champed and half of my 2*'s.

You gotta spend money to make money. Do not be afraid to sell off some max champs to keep the ball rolling.

jamesh

The main point of iso-8 is to put a choke on players' progress in the game to keep them playing regularly.  The fact that it is massively overpriced in the cash store (still) is an indication that they expect the majority of iso-8 to entering the game to come from game play rewards.

It's no accident that playing regularly every day over two weeks gives you a bit more iso-8 than needed to champ a 4* character, and they release new characters every 2 weeks.

I think this was a lot more important before they introduced the champion mechanic to the game: back then, the amount of iso-8 in the game was a lot lower, and getting all of your 3* characters up to level 166 was an achievement.  These days, I think they could probably abolish iso-8 completely and have characters auto-level to their highest level without affecting the game balance much.  It would make the event rewards look a little more bare though.

shardwick

I'm in the same boat. 16 or 17 fully covered 4s to champ and like 18 dupe 3s to champ though things should get a tad easier once my dupe 3s get maxed out. If I only had one set of 3s then I'd be much further along but, alas, I like farming and having a set of max champed 3s.

Colognoisseur

one of the most overlooked ways of generating iso are the weekly Lrs.
You just have to be there at the start and you will get 10 seed teams each worth the rewards for that plus even if you don’t play another match you’ll get a iso placement award.
playing this way just requires a Thanos and one match to rip through the seeds in 5m
i was nuts when I was in my iso deprived days and I’d play 20 lrs per week but it was a quick efficient way of generating iso.

TPF Alexis

There are alternate gluts and droughts of various resources as you go through the game. You're currently in the longest of them, but that's entirely normal at your point in the game. Since Saved Covers became a thing, it's not nearly as frustrating a situation to be in, but yeah, it's still a slog.

AXP_isme

I’m 2000+ days in and am still in an iso crunch. Ultimately there’s an element of resource management in the game and you will need to make decisions about where to spend it. Don’t worry if you’re short some iso now (or HP or CP or anything else, really) it’s perfectly normal. That’s the game. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I don't know if you're doing it "wrong," since so many of us appear to be in this boat. I'll tell you what I did for awhile was buy up all my covered 4*s to 209 at one point. It's a large initial investment of iso, but it gets you ready for Shield Training (in fact I used ST to drive the order I did it) whenever that pops up, and then the cost to go from 209->champ is much more palatable at 230k iso. I then just champ them based on who has the most saved covers. 

I'm on day 1404, I have 16 4*s left to champ, 6 are covered. Of the 10 that need covers, one is Ham, 2 are "new!" still, and the rest have at least 9. So it kind of feels like the end is in sight.

Vhailorx

TC, from D3/Demi's perspective, you are doing something wrong: you are not buying enough iso.

From a realistic perspective, no, a massive iso drought is standard fare for the 4* transition as covers come a bit faster than iso. 

Once you get to 60+ 4* champs and a decent 5* bench, you can stop worrying about leveling any 4* past 209, at which point iso is no longer really a constraining factor on roster growth (though margins are about to be trimmed with the champion rewards change).

And eventually, if you grind like a madwoman for years, or mortgage your house, you can achieve true post-iso status where everyone is champed as soon as you have the cover with surplus iso to spare.

pheregas

You are always going to be iso-starved up until the exact moment that you are not.  It's just part of the game.

froggerjohn

Just to clarify a bit, I wasn't complaining about cover progress (which I'm happy with), but rather the widening disparity between that progress, and the iso requirements to take advantage of it.

And indeed, one of the triggers for this topic, was the rework of champ rewards, in which they're apparently going to increase cover/shard rewards at the expense of some reduced iso and other resources. (Which seems like it will only exacerbate this condition).

They really should have INCREASED the iso rewards to go along with the increased covers/shards, to help combat the general dilution. Every time they add a character, it effectively dilutes all resources, since they need to be spread over a wider base of characters.

In practice, most of the 4* tier is fine to leave at 209 for the foreseeable future, since so many of them aren't really usable, even when boosted.

And the more direct answer to my initial question, is that it's precisely the extra money I spent on the game to accelerate cover progress, that caused the "wider than normal" gap between the covers and the iso. Now that I understand that part, and accept the tradeoffs that it represents, I'm ok with where I'm at, and how to keep moving forwards from here.

Colognoisseur

I think you are exactly where you should be. It was smart to check to make sure there isn’t anything you’re missing. It looks like there isn’t. This is probably the toughest resource crunch phase. Eventually you will find yourself through. Then you can come hang out on the post-iso porch.
Just not in my rocking chair.