Re-examining community ISO flow

Beast1970

Understanding that the Devs rarely answer questions, but IceIX has said they frequently read these forums, I thought it worthwhile to ask the following:

It has been stated before that adjustments to ISO rewards were made to 'funbalance' the ISO flow in the community. For example, the initial clear of a node in PVE used to include a separate ISO reward which has since been rescinded due to Dev concerns with excessive ISO pouring into the economy. While 'they' have not stated it, I had the feeling from prior posts that magical ISO number was based on a per person quota.

Having said all of that, I wonder if there has been consideration for the ever expanding roster in their equation. There is an ever increasing number of three star characters injected into the game. It feels like we are seeing about two new characters a month, give or take. It feels to me that the logic of reducing the ISO pool at a time of increasing demand is flawed. I could almost understand if the new characters were two star, but with the exponential nature of ISO required to level, and the fact that a three star really needs to be leveled between 90-100 to be as useful as a maxed two star, my perception is the ISO demand in the community is definitely on the rise, and as such, the ISO supply should not be reduced unless there is a lull in character release.

I also understand that for a veteran player, the addition of a new character just provides somewhere to use their stockpile of ISO. A new player will likely not get the new character in their first week or so. What I am considering are the middle of the road players, complete with the prologue, building rosters in the transition from two star to three star. We now have 20 three star characters, I believe there were seven when I started playing. A chart I found on the wiki states it takes 81682 ISO to take a three star to level 100, 172764 total to get maxed at 141. Seems to me that releasing about two new characters a month is greatly increasing the ISO demand.

I am hoping that someone more skilled in the math of the game can take a second and validate my perception, and perhaps provide some constructive feedback. We all know that some of this is designed to create revenue, as a F2P game cannot exist unless someone pays, and we have plenty of threads about the revenue practices of D3. This post is not designed to incite more "Yup, just shows they are greedy" comments, but just to analyze this aspect of game growth.

MarvelMan

Somewhat strangely I have found that my immediate iso demands have gone down recently. I attribute it to the increased variety of covers, and therefore the difficulty to get any chars to the point where leveling them makes sense. I have 13 3*s fully covered....but only 7-9 covers for the other 7 so I havent dropped more than a pittance of iso into them. Of course, when I do manage to cover them Ill need vast quantities of iso so stockpiling key for me atm.

HailMary

Beast1970 wrote:

It feels to me that the logic of reducing the ISO pool at a time of increasing demand is flawed.

Keep in mind that they also bumped up Iso flow from PVP fight completions. Instead of a flat 20 Iso a while ago, you get 70 Iso/140 Iso/100 Iso from 1* cover/250 Iso from 2* cover now.

Beast1970 wrote:

Seems to me that releasing about two new characters a month is greatly increasing the ISO demand.

That depends on how go about maxing characters. If you're spreading the Iso love to anything and everything you can get your hands on, and you consistently get high-tier PVP placement, then yeah, you're going to be short of Iso. But, that's been the case for a long while, before the new character glut. If you're gathering all the covers you can, but focusing your Iso on leveling solid core characters one at a time, and only when you can push them past L100, you should be able to get more than enough Iso to build a good 3* team.

For example, I've got a few 141s, and they were all burst-leveled from tiny to L100+ in one go, because anything less isn't useful unless boosted. I have three other good, 13-cover 3*s (with optimal/near-optimal builds) that I haven't maxed. Even so, I'm prioritizing my Iso for UDaken, Sentry, and the forthcoming Punkstorm, since I think they are/will be more useful/fun than the three 13-cover 3*s I've already got.

Unknown

If you ask the devs, they'll say they did increase ISO flow. There are a lot more events now then a few months ago to get ISO from progressions/nodes/etc.. They also increased PvP drop rates from under 100 to 105 on average. They bumped up the amount of ISO from selling 2* or greater covers. So overall there has been an increase in ISO.

Spoit

I still don't know how people in the 100 day area have multiple 141s. I'm at 160, and only have one, which admittedly was because I spread it out a bit, but looking at my ISO spends, I could only really have maxed 3. At most.

Beast1970

HailMary wrote:

Beast1970 wrote:

It feels to me that the logic of reducing the ISO pool at a time of increasing demand is flawed.

Keep in mind that they also bumped up Iso flow from PVP fight completions. Instead of a flat 20 Iso a while ago, you get 70 Iso/140 Iso/100 Iso from 1* cover/250 Iso from 2* cover now.

I fully agree with your other points, but due to the following from IceIX, I have to disagree with the bump in ISO flow from PVP:

IceIX wrote:

Beginners and Intermediate Agents rejoice! Today's data patch is targeted at improving your ability to improve your roster of heroes and bring the fight to Osborn and your fellow Agents.

Gameplay

-Added in new random rewards for finishing Versus battles. In addition to the normal 70/140 Iso-8 rewards, it is now possible to pull any 1* or 2* character. These Comic Cover rewards are balanced in frequency so that the overall Iso-8 rewards assuming that you sell all covers is equal to the previous rewards in Versus.

In another thread, he states the numerical average ISO per PVP fight is 105, which would be right on mark as a replacement for the old 70/140 ISO reward.

In addition, while I agree (and use) your selective method of leveling the 3* characters only when useful, I still wonder what metric was used to determine the need to slow the ISO injection while increasing the number of 3* characters available. IceIX has stated many times that changes are intended to promote diversity, and indeed, releasing new characters and shifting buffs around supports that goal. Reducing the ISO in the community does not. I am not saying the ISO rewards require a boost from prior levels, nor do I expect to instantly fully level a new character short of winning a lottery, just wondering after the last few PVPs if the reduction in ISO influx is commensurate with supporting their desired diversity. It is definitely still very possible to select your two main characters for PVP and manage your team to be competitive. Exactly from your point, spreading the ISO love and getting high-tier PVP placement will create a shortage of ISO, which was always the case before the new character glut, and that is the point at which I don't think further reducing ISO made sense.

Ultimately, I'm not sure where the rational came from to support:

IceIX wrote:

First time completion bonuses - They were removed to keep overall Iso-8 influx steady, users were on the whole gaining more than desired.

Spoit

Probably the same rationale that had a net loss of 100 HP when they changed it from 500+100 to 250+250 for alliance rewards

HailMary

Spoit wrote:

I still don't know how people in the 100 day area have multiple 141s. I'm at 160, and only have one, which admittedly was because I spread it out a bit, but looking at my ISO spends, I could only really have maxed 3. At most.

For me, it was lots of LR farming and nearly zero Iso spreading. Back when LRs seemingly had more favorable MMR pacing, and you could get unmaxed 2* teams for a long while after depleting seed teams, I think I could get somewhere around 100-150K Iso from a full set of LRs (and concurrent PVPs)? I think that number's about right. I don't really remember.

I burst-leveled LT, BP, CMags from baby to L102 over the span of two days after I got sufficient covers (around Day 80?), and burst-leveled Hulk from L25 to L130 in one go using hoarded Iso -- I only stopped because I wanted to reserve Iso to insta-max LT in case I got lucky with LT covers. After that, I leveled Mr. Rogers to L75 for the PVE that buffed him (The Hunt, maybe?), but otherwise, all Iso went to maxing those core four. After those were maxed, all Iso was reserved for maxing subsequent target characters. So far, that's been Hood, and now UDaken at his L115 soft cap. Sentry & Punkstorm look like they'll be my next targets.

Beast1970 wrote:

In another thread, he states the numerical average ISO per PVP fight is 105, which would be right on mark as a replacement for the old 70/140 ISO reward.

Ah, I was comparing it to the even older standard of a flat 20 Iso per PVP fight.

Beast1970 wrote:

In addition, while I agree (and use) your selective method of leveling the 3* characters only when useful, I still wonder what metric was used to determine the need to slow the ISO injection while increasing the number of 3* characters available. IceIX has stated many times that changes are intended to promote diversity, and indeed, releasing new characters and shifting buffs around supports that goal. Reducing the ISO in the community does not. I am not saying the ISO rewards require a boost from prior levels, nor do I expect to instantly fully level a new character short of winning a lottery, just wondering after the last few PVPs if the reduction in ISO influx is commensurate with supporting their desired diversity. It is definitely still very possible to select your two main characters for PVP and manage your team to be competitive. Exactly from your point, spreading the ISO love and getting high-tier PVP placement will create a shortage of ISO, which was always the case before the new character glut, and that is the point at which I don't think further reducing ISO made sense.

Ultimately, I'm not sure where the rational came from to support:

IceIX wrote:

First time completion bonuses - They were removed to keep overall Iso-8 influx steady, users were on the whole gaining more than desired.

I don't know where the rationale for that specific decision comes from, either, but I think we're anchoring our comparisons at different points. In general, the switch to 70/140 Iso massively increased the Iso flow rate. After that, eliminating PVE first-completion Iso rewards did lower it, but by an amount that'd be entirely compensated for by doing two PVP fights per PVE first-completion. Annoying, but NBD in my book.

I can see your point about Iso flow being reduced at certain stages, and I don't mean this as a dismissal, but from where I stand, it's still more than enough.

MaxCavalera

I am on day 171 and I feel like ISO amounts have generally been getting better and better. The PvP rewarding covers now is apparently only statically a minor improvement or non at all but i will say it definitely is a good psychological boost. Hitting that sell all button after a long pvp battle for placement and seeing the iso flood in is great. Really wish they didn't take out the first time completion bonus though. I really thought it helped again psychologically the first time you take down that ridiculous node you would be guaranteed something and sometimes you would get the 200 and 500 in one shot which was nice. They could take out the 250 iso rewards and replace it with another token or boost? Other then that i have been happy with the changes iso related.

Unknown

Let's look at the math from the recently completed Fresh Cut PvP:

Top 50 individuals received 1 3*, top 10 2 3* covers. That's 60 3* covers per bracket of 500, so an average of 0.12 covers/person.

Top 100 alliances received 1 3* cover. Assuming that all top 100 have 20 members (probably very close to true) and that the total population is ~150,000 (guess based on the last SHIELD), that's 2000 3* covers for an average of 0.013 covers/person

Net for the tourney was 0.133 covers/person - or to put it another way, it would take 97.5 tourneys to fully cover (13, ignoring concerns like ideal build) a 3*

On the ISO side, the average per person from the bracket was 655 ISO.

Estimating the ISO from alliances is a mess without proper numbers, so I guesstimated the following assumptions - top 250 alliances have 20 members, 251-500 have 10 members, 500 and below have 5 members. That lead to a rough number of 106 ISO/person from alliances.

Total, the ISO from the tournament was 761 ISO/person from end rewards. I think it's also safe (?) to assume that almost everyone got the 500 ISO for 50 points award, so we'll add that on and call it 1261 ISO/person. Let's also give out the average of 105 ISO/match for three matches (everyone still gets at least 3 seed teams, right?) for a grand total of 1576 ISO/person. Calculating against the 172k ISO needed to max a 3*, we get 109 tourneys needed to max level a 3*.

So this is why it looks balanced from D3's side - the total amount of covers and ISO are roughly equal.

Now we all know that from our side it looks a little different - the top players will get enough covers to max any character in 5 events, and no one is going to get 34.4k ISO per event. (At least, I don't think so - with 9500 ISO available from progression+rewards from Fresh Cut, you'd need 25,000 from matches, or 238 matches.) So from the perspective of most forum users, who are used to placing well and winning a lot of covers, the ISO supply looks thin. But overall, it's not.

This also implies that there's a large number of casual players who don't win covers but have plentiful ISO. I suspect that these people are also the people who are buying cover packs - they need the covers, but have the ISO.

MarvelMan

Absolutely excellent post, loved the math (and assumptions seem right)!

Just one thing to nitpick:

ZenBrillig wrote:

everyone still gets at least 3 seed teams, right?

I havent seen seed teams in a couple tourneys or LRs. To get those these days (and I only have 2x 141s) I have to open the window within seconds of it going live, and even then they dont always show up. In the several LR I tried to join, even at 1h29m left, I was still seeing 3x 141+s (often 212s). =(

To D3, I would suggest that factoring in the occasional boost would be a good idea when balancing the iso vs covers. I would hazard the guess that most high level players are about even on what they find vs use during shield hopping/etc, I know what I find isnt usually in what I would prefer (looking at those crit boosts that I almost always have pegged at 30).

Spoit

Yeah, I have to be checking it right at the rollover, otherwise, instead of seeds I get 3x212

Clintman

ZenBrillig wrote:

Let's look at the math from the recently completed Fresh Cut PvP:

Top 50 individuals received 1 3*, top 10 2 3* covers. That's 60 3* covers per bracket of 500, so an average of 0.12 covers/person.

Top 100 alliances received 1 3* cover. Assuming that all top 100 have 20 members (probably very close to true) and that the total population is ~150,000 (guess based on the last SHIELD), that's 2000 3* covers for an average of 0.013 covers/person

Net for the tourney was 0.133 covers/person - or to put it another way, it would take 97.5 tourneys to fully cover (13, ignoring concerns like ideal build) a 3*

On the ISO side, the average per person from the bracket was 655 ISO.

Estimating the ISO from alliances is a mess without proper numbers, so I guesstimated the following assumptions - top 250 alliances have 20 members, 251-500 have 10 members, 500 and below have 5 members. That lead to a rough number of 106 ISO/person from alliances.

Total, the ISO from the tournament was 761 ISO/person from end rewards. I think it's also safe (?) to assume that almost everyone got the 500 ISO for 50 points award, so we'll add that on and call it 1261 ISO/person. Let's also give out the average of 105 ISO/match for three matches (everyone still gets at least 3 seed teams, right?) for a grand total of 1576 ISO/person. Calculating against the 172k ISO needed to max a 3*, we get 109 tourneys needed to max level a 3*.

So this is why it looks balanced from D3's side - the total amount of covers and ISO are roughly equal.

Now we all know that from our side it looks a little different - the top players will get enough covers to max any character in 5 events, and no one is going to get 34.4k ISO per event. (At least, I don't think so - with 9500 ISO available from progression+rewards from Fresh Cut, you'd need 25,000 from matches, or 238 matches.) So from the perspective of most forum users, who are used to placing well and winning a lot of covers, the ISO supply looks thin. But overall, it's not.

This also implies that there's a large number of casual players who don't win covers but have plentiful ISO. I suspect that these people are also the people who are buying cover packs - they need the covers, but have the ISO.

Holy ****!!! Who are you? What did you do with the Zenbrillig whose posts I have come to dread? Actually nevermind, I like this Zenbrillig better. Well done sir.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

I still don't know how people in the 100 day area have multiple 141s. I'm at 160, and only have one, which admittedly was because I spread it out a bit, but looking at my ISO spends, I could only really have maxed 3. At most.

I'm still shocked how wildly different people's iso flow seems to be. I know you are a pretty active player but am absolutely shocked by your iso bank. I'm on day 210ish so I have 50 days on your but I have 7 141s and more than enough iso in the bank for more and I've never bought iso.

Looking at my ISO calculator thread, some people significantly out-earned me too.

Nemek

entropic01 wrote:

Spoit wrote:

I still don't know how people in the 100 day area have multiple 141s. I'm at 160, and only have one, which admittedly was because I spread it out a bit, but looking at my ISO spends, I could only really have maxed 3. At most.

I'm still shocked how wildly different people's iso flow seems to be. I know you are a pretty active player but am absolutely shocked by your iso bank. I'm on day 210ish so I have 50 days on your but I have 7 141s and more than enough iso in the bank for more and I've never bought iso.

Looking at my ISO calculator thread, some people significantly out-earned me too.

Judging by the number of FB gifts I get from Spoit, I assumed he was playing quite a bit, too.

But, yeah, my ISO flow is very high right now. Those LR seed teams are just big ISO fountains.