Finally giving to hoarding

Blackstone

Warning: the following is a bit of a rant.  It's primary purpose is to vent and distract myself from the urge to use my LL pulls.  Forgive me if it doesn't add anything to the community...

[Edit: Great to hear that others are doing great without hoarding.

Maybe it's just me.

I did have a period of time where I joined a competitive alliance... Had to place at a certain level, join discord channels to coordinate playing versus, spent money to contribute to the pool of CP so that I wasn't just benefiting, putting a lot of time into not only playing but discussing MPQ

I was getting a lot more tokens and CP...

... But I still wasn't getting 5* covers when I used those tokens and CP.  Which just made the whole thing seem like a waste of time, because I was getting and using resources, but still not getting the payoff.

Thanks for the advice, but I've tried the alliance thing and I can't keep up because I don't get drops at the rate others seem to get them and I get left behind.  I'm not disparaging anything that's worked for others, I'm stating that nothing has worked for me after doing all the alliance stuff because I just don't get enough 5*s to keep up.  The only thing I haven't tried is hoarding, so I'm going to give that a shot.

With that said, I'm not discounting people's advice, but I've tried it and it didn't work for me.  It's already hard to hoardas it is because I recognize I shouldn't have to but I've been down this road before.  It only leads to me wasting time and others going "oh dang, you do have really bad luck in pulls".

Anyway, hoarding is the thing I'm trying to do now because nothing else has worked.  My hope is that I can get some decent pulls when a meta competitive character is in LL, then I can look at joining an alliance.]

I'm on day 2210 of playing MPQ.

I have one (yes, one) champed 5*.

I have stubbornly refused to hoard token pulls because I believed I just shouldn't have to do such a thing to play.  I should be able to naturally progress while competing against people with similar rosters.  It worked for every other level of play, after all...

This, however, is not the case.

I'm competing against fully 5* champed rosters.  Meanwhile I have one champed 5* (captain marvel fell like leaves in the fall for me.... She failed to live up to her 4* counterpart, however, and wasn't much of a boon to my roster.  Before and after her presence in the LL store my luck with draws had been dismal)

I'm missing two 5*s altogether and only have a few covers for most others.  Shards help (I'm up to as many as 9 covers for a few heroes) but it's not enough to complete against fully champed teams.

After realizing I wasn't getting any bang for my buck, I started counting... Then I got a little upset.

Out of 127 pulls (using them as they came) I had garnered a total of four 5* covers.

Four. 4.  Tiny kitty 4!

I know, there are no guarantees and one could pull a hundred times netting zero, but it still feels like a huge let down.

This finally convinced me that, if I want to be able to earn the top rewards I have to hoard my tokens in order to be competitive.

It's literally a requirement.

This brings me to today.

I have 34 potential LL pulls.

My brain is making me to use a few.

"You might get lucky and pull heimdall or samurai darken... You know you need at least one of both... With only a few pulls."

I know better.  I'd end up using all of them, pulling a bunch of 4*s I don't need at all, and a few that are actually helpful (feeders perhaps) and very likely no 5*s at all.

And, even if I do pull one cover for one of the missing 5*s, what does that really do for me?  Nothing.

It just sets me back to zero pulls with little to show for it and starting all over.

I'll be missing a few for now, I will likely but see the 5* DP at all either, but I have to save the tokens.

Only 366 to go...

DyingLegend

I don't hoard. I just open everything i get.

Blackstone

How is it working it for you?

grunth13

You do need to hoard.  The quick release of 5's just can't be sustained with a FTP playstyle.  Also, you need to find a top 100 alliance...preferably top 25.  That will gain you a bunch of tokens.  Also, if you are a buyer, you need to join a buy club.  You buying 1 stark for 7cp is paltry vs buying 1 stark in an alliance with 19 other buyers which will net you 140cp.  Traditionally we use about 350 pulls to get all 3 latest champed.  That's the magic number.  If you want to play with the big boys, you need closer to 1900 pulls.  People have saved all of their cp and legendary tokens for up to 2 years to break into that magic 550 game play.  If you need help with this, you can pm me, and I will direct you to the proper areas.

ursopro

Never hoarded or spent heavily in this game, doing just fine.

The key is to find a good alliance.

DyingLegend

Blackstone said:

How is it working it for you?

Working out pretty decently.

Finished Apoc before he was vaulted and due to pulling tons of Classic tokens whenever i get 20CP, i finished up BRB last month and Kitty this past week. 

All my 4 stars, minus negasonic are leveled and fully covered.

I also only buy the VIP thingy here and there.

halirin

I finally started hoarding this summer after being a pull as I go-er. I'm almost all f2p and I don't reliably compete hard most events or always do full prog, but sometimes I do. Still, I've been able to cover a goodly number of 5*s. Some good like Okoye, so fine like Phoenix and IM (my first two), and also some like Angel and surfer. But I've also had total **** luck with some, getting barely any kitty or brb. Getting a huge run of unwanted Havok covers (and finishing Okoye) is what prompted me to hoard. 

My advice would be not to try to go completely cold turkey. If you have some classics that are close to done and need some shards, then you can occasionally pull a classic and it'll be fine, just slower. I blew all my cp on the fan favorite store, but I'm up to 151 LL tokens and they just don’t tempt me like they used to. I know I will still gamble with cp some so I just don’t get as antsy. I just hope my LLs are up to 300 by the next time we have a super group of latests again.

 Good luck, you can do it!

Blackstone

grunth13 said:

You do need to hoard.  The quick release of 5's just can't be sustained with a FTP playstyle.  Also, you need to find a top 100 alliance...preferably top 25.  That will gain you a bunch of tokens.  Also, if you are a buyer, you need to join a buy club.  You buying 1 stark for 7cp is paltry vs buying 1 stark in an alliance with 19 other buyers which will net you 140cp.  Traditionally we use about 350 pulls to get all 3 latest champed.  That's the magic number.  If you want to play with the big boys, you need closer to 1900 pulls.  People have saved all of their cp and legendary tokens for up to 2 years to break into that magic 550 game play.  If you need help with this, you can pm me, and I will direct you to the proper areas.

I think this is normally great advice.

I've seen it work for others and have tried it multiple times.

I did end up getting a lot more tokens and CP, but that never translated to more 5* covers for me.

Mathematically, it should have worked out that way, it just didn't.

So now I'm trying something else.

Blackstone

DyingLegend said:

Blackstone said:

How is it working it for you?

Working out pretty decently.

Finished Apoc before he was vaulted and due to pulling tons of Classic tokens whenever i get 20CP, i finished up BRB last month and Kitty this past week. 

All my 4 stars, minus negasonic are leveled and fully covered.

I also only buy the VIP thingy here and there.

That's awesome to hear.

This is exactly what I've told myself should be happening for years.

My reality is just different.  

I do fine with 4*s, but 5*s just don't like me.

Maybe it's all in my head, but I've been doing what you describe for years, it's just not working out for me.

In fact, I'm so certain of my luck with not getting 5*s that if I gave in did every pull I could right now (35 at the moment) at no point would I actually expect to get 5* cover.  My expectation would be that I'd get all 4*s.  If I did get a 5*, any 5*, I'd jump up and down and celebrate by going out to lunch because it would a nice surprise.

Anyway, congrats on finding what works for you.  I'm hoping hoarding is the thing that works for me.

Blackstone

halirin said:

I finally started hoarding this summer after being a pull as I go-er. I'm almost all f2p and I don't reliably compete hard most events or always do full prog, but sometimes I do. Still, I've been able to cover a goodly number of 5*s. Some good like Okoye, so fine like Phoenix and IM (my first two), and also some like Angel and surfer. But I've also had total **** luck with some, getting barely any kitty or brb. Getting a huge run of unwanted Havok covers (and finishing Okoye) is what prompted me to hoard. 

My advice would be not to try to go completely cold turkey. If you have some classics that are close to done and need some shards, then you can occasionally pull a classic and it'll be fine, just slower. I blew all my cp on the fan favorite store, but I'm up to 151 LL tokens and they just don’t tempt me like they used to. I know I will still gamble with cp some so I just don’t get as antsy. I just hope my LLs are up to 300 by the next time we have a super group of latests again.

 Good luck, you can do it!

Thanks.  Hopefully I can have a similar experience.

Dormammu

You can champ out of the latest three with the pull-as-you-go method but it requires a steady income of resources from full progression and high placement in both PvE and PVP at high SCLs. The catch-22 is you need some champed 5s to be able to do that, and they probably need to be meta to do it in PvP. To get those champed meta 5s you'll need to amass a hoard at least once and wait for the right two or three to be in Latest Legends (or wait for a special store). This takes patience and can be frustrating because your roster growth basically grinds to a crawling halt - followed by a satisfying burst of advancement when you finally cash-in.

My advice to anyone who doesn't have the stomach for hoarding is to stay in 4-star land and enjoy the most diverse and fun stage of MPQ. Let your 5-stars grow organically through shards and pulling tokens as you go, soft-capping any you use to be a lower level than your boosted 4-stars. Eventually you'll end up with fully-covered fives and then you can decide if you want to make the jump or not.

To the OP... having one non-meta 5-star champ is awful. It puts you in an area of MMR you don't want to be in and severely restricts what you can do in PvP (which I am sure you have experienced). Many players have made the same mistake of rushing into 5-star territory with a non-meta and it ruins their PvP experience in MPQ. You basically have two choices: hoard and suffer through it, or sell your Captain Marvel and drop your MMR back down to 4-star territory.

HoundofShadow

I open LTs or pull CPs as I progress and I could get a handful of them to 9-10 covers previously. After Shards appeared or after the increased 5* release schedule, it dropped to about 8 covers. It was at this point I decided to pull for 1 cover and just stop.

The anniversary fan favourite cp store drained all my cps but I had pretty great pulls. There are some stores that are pretty predictable like Fan Favourite Store.

If you have access to SCL 10, you can play twice to get that latest 5* cover or 500 shards. The good point of shards is that if your goal is to pull for only 1 cover of new 5* that you are not interested in, you won't even need to touch your cps or LTs.


The other thing is that you might want to track how many cps and how many LTs you are earning per week. I have done this for about 3 months now and I think it's helpful in helping you to predict how many LTs and CPs you will have 3 months or 6 months later. There are certain events that will certainly happen, like Women's Day Celebration and Fan Favourite store.

You might also want to keep track of your LT pulls and tally how many 5* you get.

Blackstone

Dormammu said:

You can champ out of the latest three with the pull-as-you-go method but it requires a steady income of resources from full progression and high placement in both PvE and PVP at high SCLs. The catch-22 is you need some champed 5s to be able to do that, and they probably need to be meta to do it in PvP. To get those champed meta 5s you'll need to amass a hoard at least once and wait for the right two or three to be in Latest Legends (or wait for a special store). This takes patience and can be frustrating because your roster growth basically grinds to a crawling halt - followed by a satisfying burst of advancement when you finally cash-in.

My advice to anyone who doesn't have the stomach for hoarding is to stay in 4-star land and enjoy the most diverse and fun stage of MPQ. Let your 5-stars grow organically through shards and pulling tokens as you go, soft-capping any you use to be a lower level than your boosted 4-stars. Eventually you'll end up with fully-covered fives and then you can decide if you want to make the jump or not.

To the OP... having one non-meta 5-star champ is awful. It puts you in an area of MMR you don't want to be in and severely restricts what you can do in PvP (which I am sure you have experienced). Many players have made the same mistake of rushing into 5-star territory with a non-meta and it ruins their PvP experience in MPQ. You basically have two choices: hoard and suffer through it, or sell your Captain Marvel and drop your MMR back down to 4-star territory.

Yup.  Hoarding and suffering is what I'm doing.

Fingers crossed I get the right number of pulls before a great line up happens in LL.

helix72

@Blackstone

In hopes that you find it helpful, I wanted to share my somewhat similar journey. I'm someone who only recently (within the last few months) made the leap to 5* land. I'm on day 1073 and I am a spender (I don't think I'm a whale, but everyone's definition varies).

As long as I played this game, until recently, I was not in a t100 alliance, and never bothered with flips, hopping, or buy clubs. But I always have been at least a partial hoarder. I think this fits how I view things in life, I've never been a paycheck to paycheck guy, always looking ahead to what I could do if I traded instant gratification now for some savings for later. I started a $50 a month mutual fund when I was in my 20's, and now I can buy a car with it's worth. But I digress.

For me, it wasn't just about getting the meta 5*'s, but also getting the meta cover distributions, so I could softcap and use them. While I was still in 4* land, I got my Thor to like 5/1/1 and he was usable. I got my Kitty to 5/5/3 and parked her at level 360. This was done partially through feeders and shargeting, but also through hoarding. I also waited until I had Okoye, Kitty, Apocalypse, and Thor fully covered and with 2M ISO saved before I jumped to 5* land.

Now I'm not without my need for some gratification. The time between vaults that had characters I wanted was sometimes long and dull. So I devised a system that worked for me: "pull one, bank one". I put the math below, but in essence, I set a target amount of CP I wanted to "bank" between pulls. So if my target was 120 CP as an example, I'd build up to 240 CP, then once I hit 240 CP, pull until I got a usable cover, then build up again until I got to 360 CP, then pull until I got a single usable cover, rinse, repeat. This worked for me, giving me a nice balance of hoarding and pulling. And in between, while I was also gaining LTs I was hoarding them until there was a new latest, when I would pull until I got one cover and stop.

When there were meta latests or meta special vaults I chased them hard. And maybe I got a little lucky because I had a lot of LTs when Beta Ray Bill, Apocalypse, and iHulk were introduced, and now all are at or over 13 covers.

So I'd say--define which 5* matters the most to you, which will depend on if you play PvE, PvP, or both, at what SCL and to what level of progression. Then become at least a partial hoarder. Or don't...but do what you enjoy the most!

The math:

I looked at the percentage of classic 5* covers that were "useful" to me. By useful I mean not just a saved cover. Since the 5* pull rate is 15%, if 90% of the covers were useful to me, and a classic pull cost 20 CP, then I figured it would take an average of [ 1 / (15% x 90%) ] x 20 CP = 148 CP to pull a useful cover. So I'd use the method above with 148 as my target spend one/save one.

PiMacleod

Wasn't a hoarder until about a half a year before Kitty came out.  Of course, I had no clue such a meta character was coming... but I was tired of just pulling as I go and sitting in 4* land.  

So, I started planning.  I figured if I could just hoard a bunch of these things and wait for a really good character or 2 or 3 to come along, and I'll pull then... this could change my game.

And it definitely did.  Now, to be fair, my pulls were mainly for Kitty... the other two were Cable and ... Loki, if I remember right.  Not exactly shining stars.  But oh well.  I pulled over 100 tokens or whatever, got a decently covered Kitty, and plenty of Cable/Loki.... had a lucky streak.

From that point forward, I could see how pulling from Latests made a big difference.  There's only 3 peeps in there, instead of ...I dunno... EVEYRONE ELSE to split the 15% odds up with.  So, that's basically 5% chance to pull the character you want... or 1.6% to pull the specific cover for the character you want.  That gets substantially worse if you add in every other 5* to the mix like the classics do.

So, I started a pattern of pull all tokens, then save until the next 5* hits tokens, repeat.  I do not spend CP in Latest Legends.  Instead, I spend the CP on the new 5* store.  Sure, it has 2 classics in there, but once again, my odds of covering a specific someone are greatly increased.

Since a 5* character is in Latest Legends for effectively three of these type of pull sessions, and 1 new 5* store, I effectively pull for each new 5* FOUR times.  As long as I'm doing full progression on PvEs, and doing the other easy daily stuff (DDQ, maybe a bit of PvP, you get the point), I get plenty of chances to score covers for that character.

Also, since I play SCL 10 PvE exclusively, I get at least 1.5 covers per new 5* character from the shards.  I can probably score the other half cover from shards via PvP, placement, etc.  This effectively leaves me with only needing 11 covers from the four different pulls per character.


Does this always work?  Nope.  But it works sometimes.  Can't win them all -- I'm not spending money (beyond the $2 for bonus rewards here and there)... so I can't complain!   But doing this method, I have a champed Onslaught, Apocalypse, Yelena, Iceman, Prof X, Hela, and many more.

They say "misery loves company" -- so, please understand that I feel your 5* Marvel pain.  She was my first champ too.  I didn't plan for that!  After I had a few more under my belt, all the woes started fading.  

Its a rough game -- the longest, grindiest game I know, beyond a full scale MMO.  This game is definitely a "long haul" sort of thing.  You'll get there, as long as you want to.

pheregas

It's, unfortunately, a necessary evil with the breakneck 5* release schedule.  I can barely get one 5* champed before the next is released, then it's hold onto every scrap of LT or CP until the new one hits Latest.  And sometimes, I don't make it and have to keep shargetting a newly banished classic.

Never used to have this problem.  And it's getting old.  I have so many lvl 450 5s now.  Can't even get the LT on some of them.  I used to end up with all of them at around 456 before they'd leave.  

For the record, I hate hoarding.  There's no way to keep up without doing so anymore, though.  

jp1

I have barely been able to keep up without hoarding. Just hit 450 with Onslaught, SamDak (jury is still out on him), everyone prior is hitting lower levels by an average of 10 covers than before. 

Looks unlikely I’ll be getting SamDak and Heimdall both done. I refuse to hoard, I’d rather quit, the grind is bad enough without the occasional relief of a reward.

Borstock

I try to top-50 everything and even with hoarding I have had to pick 5's to skip. It bothers the completionist in me, but then I think about how I never use most of my 5's and I get over it. I have all the metas in my arsenal. That's good enough.

captainheath

It was this issue that made me quit a month and a half ago.  I have about 12 or so champs, but couldn't keep up with champing 5's even with paying VIP from the start of VIP almost all the time.  I was in a pretty good alliance and played daily for 5 plus years.

I still check in here at the forums just to see if changes are made, but the interest for this game has left me.  I was slightly intrigued by the Deadpool's NIghtly stuff, but it just isn't enough to make this game worth it anymore.  This game has so much potential, but just isn't worth paying that much for so little.  

itsuka7

Blackstone said:

Thanks for the advice, but I've tried the alliance thing and I can't keep up because I don't get drops at the rate others seem to get them and I get left behind.  I'm not disparaging anything that's worked for others, I'm stating that nothing has worked for me after doing all the alliance stuff because I just don't get enough 5*s to keep up.  The only thing I haven't tried is hoarding, so I'm going to give that a shot.

It must have been a pretty competitive pvp or hybrid alliance indeed... on this bit I can add the following: having a good alliance does not mean automatically champed 5* play, unless good means t10 to you. But for a t50 or t100 pve alliance, full progression in pve or slightly more is usually a requirement, and you can get that on any pve lvl, even missing the 5*. Just picking scl7 or 8 will work fine in pve getting points. 

So, maybe you were simply in the wrong sort of alliance. Active alliances come in different sorts, it is not all or nothing. I am cmd of a t100/t50 pve, and we have plenty of players with incomplete 5* rosters, though we encourage them to try and get at least one of each. We have members in 4* land, early 5* land, and I don’t care what their 5*s look like. There is no competition, as long as they get the points in we set as minimum. And many of us do not hoard at all. 

But, that is pve and it is a different game... you sound like you are more of a pvp player, You could join a pvp alliance group that ranks the members on the basis of points. Your roster sounds like a pvp problematic one, but also here t100 or t50 should be attainable around 900 points per event. For t25 and higher, yeah, you might need to get 1200+ and that demands a competitive roster, and coordinated hitting, and with that comes all the pressure you describe to hoard - but if you aim a bit lower, there are alliance options where you can find your niche, no hoarding required.

wymtime

Just to give my experience in hoarding.

first my background I am in a top 10 PVE alliance and I climb to 1200 every PVP.  I will sometimes take a PVE off every now and then for a mental break or if it is Simulator or a really **** 5* is essential.  For PVE placement I am usually top 50 but play essential on occasion top 20.

I also have a Pokémon complex got to champ them all.  I pulled my last hoard when Killmonger entered packs because I wanted to get Apocalypse to a high level.  I pulled till all my pills were done but did not use any new champ rewards to pull more covers.  Since Killmonger entered I have saved 4600 CP and 156 LL.  I have 340 pulls and 3 more weeks to go until DP enters packs.  I will pull then looking to champ all 3 LL.  I will probably stop with all 3 champed or when OMD and Heimdall are done I have not decided yet.  Hoarding has worked extremely well for me and I wish you luck in getting more 5*