Purple iso

Mayo

So we are getting lots of shards and a faster release schedule. Apart from the 5* post iso players who are a minority, are we the rest of the mortal players having serious problems to get iso to level so many characters needed to play? Without alliance events some iso that was available for leveling is no more and double iso does not come as frecuently as it could to be helpfull.

Would be logic to ask for a increase in iso rewards to match the speed in which we are getting covers now?

krakenoon

While I have over 8M iso, I am not post iso... just waiting to spend it in the right places.
As such I disagree with this as any increase in rewards for me should be CP/HP to make up for considerable (to me) losses on these fronts.
In this state of the game, it feels like this would be another area to question when/if to spend and keeping with what seems to be the devs’ response to dilution (no fix, just put on blinders & focus on targeted heroes).
Not that I discourage the sentiment, I just personally want to see more useful resources made available before iso-8.

Vhailorx

Mayo, I think that what you are describing for demi/d3 is a feature and not a bug. They want you feeling starved for iso and ready for the next iso sale (or even better, buying iso outright).

peterdark

Direct ISO to HP conversion (and vice versa) would be ideal....

Mayo

@Vhailorx said:
Mayo, I think that what you are describing for demi/d3 is a feature and not a bug. They want you feeling starved for iso and ready for the next iso sale (or even better, buying iso outright).

Here we have a saying: God squeezes but does not choke you to death. And choking is what is happening (discarded benefits such as supports and worth less red iso as rewards even now, no alliance events that means less resources which bottomline is the actual game policy, etc).

No matter how many shards you can accomplish, without iso to champ it your character is useless.

Players (a minority) with excess iso probably don't get it from their selfish point of view... I would like them to try playing this game with this new conditions and maybe would realize that playing this game without real life resources is not fun but stressing.

The game is trying to squeeze those few hundred players which invest money in this game with premium prices instead of broadening the player base and launching real budget bundles to get scale economy working for them. Microsoft does it, altavista did not. After more than five years online anybody can guess what is coming more sooner than later if this tendency continues for mpq.

Vhailorx

Mayo,

You misunderstand me. I am not saying "the iso economy is good and you need to deal with it." I am saying "iso is the way it is because the frustration you feel is what demi/d3 want you to feel because they think it will make them more money."

I am encouraging more cynicism from you. Don't think it is just a design flaw that Demi will fix. It's deliberate and unlikely to change very much.

Also, Microsoft did not create better economies of scale to make IE dominant. They illegally leveraged their operating system market monopoly to squeeze web browsing competitors like altavista out of the market. It was basically textbook anti-competitive behaviour.

Dogface

Technically, I'm Iso starved, yet i choose to invest my Iso only in characters I care about/need. When Shield Training was still a thing, I needed to get them to at least 209. Those characters will get champed someday, but in order of usability.
So, while I AM in need of Iso, I don't FEEL the need for Iso that much.

HoundofShadow

How things have changed since the introduction of shards. I remember a year or two ago, the main complain was how difficult it is to cover new 4* character release. Now, it is about getting too many covers but not enough iso-8 to champ the characters.

Sell your max 3* or 2* and play more Lightning Rounds?

Vhailorx

@HoundofShadow said:
How things have changed since the introduction of shards. I remember a year or two ago, the main complain was how difficult it is to cover new 4* character release. Now, it is about getting too many covers but not enough iso-8 to champ the characters.

Sell your max 3* or 2* and play more Lightning Rounds?

It's not the introduction of shards. It's the fact that demi more than doubled the 4* cover rewards for playing pve to max prog and simultaneously trashed the event that was the main driver of wanting to cover every new release asap (shield training) AND slowed down the 4* release release rate

4*s have been extraneous (if not broken) for a very long time now. And demi has now removed almost every extrinsic incentive to chase them beyond a token cover. Of course people are disinterested.

HoundofShadow

Are you referring to SCL 10?

Mayo

I know that the games need to pressure players to spend but extremes are bad for business. To much pressure will eventually stop investment from players.

I myself concentrate on meta characters and getting a few 5* covers while reducing my expenditure to the minimun. I imagine that if enough players follow this approach the game will shut down eventually.

The success of this kind of service is scale economy. I can get office for 7.99 usd as millions of people in the World and that makes bill gates richer every day. Guess if he charged 100usd many would inmediately change to free open office or similar. If this game pretendes to make money for many years a change in its market strategies is needed.

Giving double or triple iso does not affect game play Nor the economy of the devs since most of us use only a máx of 10 characters at most but would make happy most players who could add variety and less boredom when playing.

jamesh

Iso is obviously in the game as a choke to limit the speed at which you can progress in the game. I do wonder if the game is at a point where they could get rid of it though.

Would the balance of the game be that different if everyone had an infinite amount of iso, and it was used automatically to level up and champion their characters? People would still progress at the same rate in the late game as they acquire champion levels, but could get through the early portion quicker.

HoundofShadow

Maybe some might want to start their own mobile game companies using IP licenses from Disney/Marvel, hires over 15 staffs that are not outsourced to India, and offer deals that are not more than 9.99?

Maybe this will allow them to understand why things are not as simple as they seem? I wish the world is as simple as customers are happy with services and majority of them will spend more and they will spend even when they don't need the items. However, reality is often disappointing.

jamesh

No need for the snark. Iso isn't a major selling point in any of the resource bundles the developers sell, and it doesn't help you progress in the game once characters are championed.

The long grind in this game is about gathering covers or shards to slowly increase champion levels. Surely that's what people are after when most people spend money on this game. Would it be a bad thing to help new players to get to this point in the game and become competitive?

HoundofShadow

It's going to introduce another problem where early players are going to complain about excessive iso-8 without any place to spend on them because they couldn't get enough covers. There are many different types of player in the game and solving one problem for one group of player will cause "problem" for another group of player.

I think players need to learn how to prioritise which characters are more important to them instead of being adamant about wanting to champ them all as soon as possible. Besides, most players are not interested in champing all characters anyway. They are more interested in focusing on their favourite characters.

jamesh

My point was that you could pretty much remove purple iso from the game today and it wouldn't make much difference to the majority of the progression curve. It's not a resource many people are willing to buy, and will only let you progress so far before covers/shards are the limiting resource.

The game is very different to the days when the champion system didn't exist and iso was much rarer.

DAZ0273

@Vhailorx said:

@HoundofShadow said:
How things have changed since the introduction of shards. I remember a year or two ago, the main complain was how difficult it is to cover new 4* character release. Now, it is about getting too many covers but not enough iso-8 to champ the characters.

Sell your max 3* or 2* and play more Lightning Rounds?

It's not the introduction of shards. It's the fact that demi more than doubled the 4* cover rewards for playing pve to max prog and simultaneously trashed the event that was the main driver of wanting to cover every new release asap (shield training) AND slowed down the 4* release release rate

4*s have been extraneous (if not broken) for a very long time now. And demi has now removed almost every extrinsic incentive to chase them beyond a token cover. Of course people are disinterested.

This is true. It is especially true if you can basically get through the essentials and the Crash for the 4* - for example Northstar and then leave the "latest," unofficial cycle. He will be parked at lvl 137 for me for basically forever or until he has enough saved covers/shards I can go on a champing spree.

I am champing now only the 4* I like, he is not one. Maria Hill will be also the same.

The only way to change this is to reintroduce some level of pressure to raise characters levels. That was 209 for Shield Training. Unfortunately, when the Devs bring this pressure back it is likely going to be at an unfriendly level to players instead of a fair balance, so things will tip back the other way.