Champions 2.0 - Batch #4 Info

Tony_Foot

@bluewolf said:
It seems to me that the “new feature rewarding hoarding” phase will be done for years at this point. You can always hoard to cover a 4 or a set of 5s or a new 3 as you choose.

I'm still hoarding support tokens. Most of my supports that are used are 4* or greater. I don't need that depth of dilution to try and pull another 4* I need. I might as well wait until there are more I want and pull then. When there's 20 in a vault each season and only one I want, I'm not battling that level of RNG at this point.

turbomoose

To confirm I have 51 total, there’s no way I would have the patience to save 1000 let alone 51k 😂

DAZ0273

As I suspected my alliance and real mate is not a freak like some of you ****! You **** weirdos!

DAZ0273

@Tony_Foot said:

@bluewolf said:
It seems to me that the “new feature rewarding hoarding” phase will be done for years at this point. You can always hoard to cover a 4 or a set of 5s or a new 3 as you choose.

I'm still hoarding support tokens. Most of my supports that are used are 4* or greater. I don't need that depth of dilution to try and pull another 4* I need. I might as well wait until there are more I want and pull then. When there's 20 in a vault each season and only one I want, I'm not battling that level of RNG at this point.

Case in point.

entrailbucket

I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

I disagree with this for newer players. At least as far as opening LT's/CT's goes. They should not open those until they are ready to legit try and cover a 5 star character. Otherwise they risk getting a whole bunch of 5 stars with 1-2 covers on them before they rotate into classics.

Opening lesser tokens should also not be done unless you have a free roster slot or the HP to purchase a roster slot. Otherwise you will literally be selling the character for ISO.

KGB

DAZ0273

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

I disagree with this for newer players. At least as far as opening LT's/CT's goes. They should not open those until they are ready to legit try and cover a 5 star character. Otherwise they risk getting a whole bunch of 5 stars with 1-2 covers on them before they rotate into classics.

Opening lesser tokens should also not be done unless you have a free roster slot or the HP to purchase a roster slot. Otherwise you will literally be selling the character for ISO.

KGB

Or else they can just buy an ascended 5 1*.

KGB

@Captain_Trips88 said:

@KGB said:

51K?

I'm at 11K worth of Elite/Heroic/Mighty plus another 1K of standard.

KGB

Genuine question - how long has it taken to hoard that many? I’m assuming it’s from long before ascension was a concept? What is the rationale behind not opening tokens? Isn’t the whole point of the game to open covers for more rewards/characters etc?

Absolutely no attack on choice of playing the game, it’s a game at the end of the day, just very curious as to what the motivation is there?

I understand hoarding latest tokens waiting for the new 5* to roll in but not the lesser tokens?

I think around the time ascension came along I had about 3-4K worth of tokens and maybe 100 standards (that I used for opening the 4 daily reward). Once ascension was announced I stopped opening everything but LT's in order to wait for all 4 batches to be finished so I could maximize what I opened.

My reasoning for saving 3-4K worth of tokens is similar to TonyFoots. I was using them to cover new 3 stars or help acquire newer 4s that were meta or close to meta.

At some point you just stop needing the rewards those tokens give out so they just pile up in a 'break in case of emergency' type thing. It's really a carry over from the early days of the game before saved covers and before I was post hero points and needed to be sure I could roster anything I opened. Obviously both those issues disappeared years ago, but I just kept holding 3-4 K out of habit especially once new 3s started being released.

Even now, when I open this hoard, I'll keep 1000ish around for new 3 star releases.

KGB

DAZ0273

@KGB said:

@Captain_Trips88 said:

@KGB said:

51K?

I'm at 11K worth of Elite/Heroic/Mighty plus another 1K of standard.

KGB

Genuine question - how long has it taken to hoard that many? I’m assuming it’s from long before ascension was a concept? What is the rationale behind not opening tokens? Isn’t the whole point of the game to open covers for more rewards/characters etc?

Absolutely no attack on choice of playing the game, it’s a game at the end of the day, just very curious as to what the motivation is there?

I understand hoarding latest tokens waiting for the new 5* to roll in but not the lesser tokens?

I think around the time ascension came along I had about 3-4K worth of tokens and maybe 100 standards (that I used for opening the 4 daily reward). Once ascension was announced I stopped opening everything but LT's in order to wait for all 4 batches to be finished so I could maximize what I opened.

My reasoning for saving 3-4K worth of tokens is similar to TonyFoots. I was using them to cover new 3 stars or help acquire newer 4s that were meta or close to meta.

At some point you just stop needing the rewards those tokens give out so they just pile up in a 'break in case of emergency' type thing. It's really a carry over from the early days of the game before saved covers and before I was post hero points and needed to be sure I could roster anything I opened. Obviously both those issues disappeared years ago, but I just kept holding 3-4 K out of habit especially once new 3s started being released.

Even now, when I open this hoard, I'll keep 1000ish around for new 3 star releases.

KGB

Why the hell do you need 1000-ish?!?!?

Tony_Foot

@entrailbucket said:
I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

Now, yeah sure. I earn so much with the economy I don't need to spend CP ever. Before that was not the case at all. You are a large spender you wouldn't understand the difference in my roster had I opened as I got tokens. I'd have an absolute ton of mid level dross. I can see this when I compare my top level characters to people of the same play time and almost zero spend. Players that pulled classics from day one.

I was pulling classics and getting absolutely no where. My game accelerated 10 fold when I did my first hoard. After that and being able to step up my levels I've never looked back for resources.

Every hoard has been a win. Holding onto LT, holding on to HP, holding on to support tokens. I'm sure there have been other times with other tokens.

meadowsweet

@entrailbucket said:
I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

I've never hoarded either, but you can definitely make the case that the game has encouraged hoarding:

• Roster Slots - hoard any token that gives covers for characters a tier above where you currently have a strong, deep roster. E.g. if you're a 1-2★ player, then you shouldn't start opening tokens that might give 3★ characters unless you have multiple open roster slots available to receive them (as well as any progression / placement / champ / SHIELD re-supply rewards you'll be earning)
• Annual Vaults - you should be hoarding your Hero Points (HP) in case a great vault comes along that you can empty, reset, and empty again
• PVP Match-making: hoard your Iso-8, don't level up characters prematurely or your MMR will be all screwed up and you'll be completely incapable of competing
• Champions 1.0 / Farming - you'd have been better off if you had hoarded your tokens until you could've been farming characters for rewards
• Saved Covers - ever have covers expire on your vine while waiting to champ that 5/0/5 character? You should have hoarded the tokens and waited for saved covers to be rolled out.
• 550 Latest 3 Legends - if you want to compete for the best rewards, you should hoard Latest Legend (LL) tokens and Command Points (CP) so the next time the latest three 5★ are the new over-powered meta, you can get them all to Level 550 (and then have customer service apply any surplus pulls as you see fit)
• Champions 2.0 / Ascension - wait, you've been farming characters? You should have been hoarding roster slots and/or Max Champ characters to prepare for Ascension! Even then, you should wait several months for us to roll out Ascension in four different batches before you open any tokens, or it'll just be even more complicated and you'll miss out on 1★ powers that don't exist yet
• Support Shards - given the abysmal rate you earn these (and that most pulls are only 1-2★), you'll probably wish you had hoarded all those Support Tokens, now that each one will be earning you shards toward leveling them up even further. But surprise - you should have hoarded them a few weeks even longer until we could fix the bug in our jackpot code!
• Retroactive Feeders - so you've been Ascending your Max Champ characters, thinking you've already earned all their feeder rewards? What if we change those and don't give retro rewards - maybe you'll wish you'd continued hoarding them? At least until the policy changes again...

Unless you're arguing the semantics of "knowing what I know now, I regret not hoarding" is not the same thing as "the game encourages hoarding", I would argue it's fairly obvious that the game constantly incentivizes and rewards players hoarding their resources and holding out for the bigger, better deal that has not yet been announced.

entrailbucket

@meadowsweet the problem with all of the things you've listed is that you can never be certain that there won't a more optimal time to unhoard in the future.

Take the 550 Latest, for example. How can you know that the 3 you choose will be useful forever, that there isn't some massively stronger guy that'll show up in the next few months?

It's the same with HP/vaults and tokens. Say you blow all your HP on an amazing vault today, then next week they release a better one? All of these things have happened too -- it's not theoretical. During a terrible run of 5*, I remember a few players 550ing a group of 3 that included Emperor Doom, and it wasn't even a crazy thing to do!

So yes, with hindsight, you can see that you might've made a more optimal choice, but you can never know this in the moment. I think this is why some folks just get stuck and hoard FOREVER, but that's clearly suboptimal -- you never get anything at all!

entrailbucket

@KGB I'd also take issue with the idea that you ever "stop needing" any covers in MPQ, even before ascension.

Certainly this was true before champions, but after that, even 2* covers, cumulatively, roll up into TONS of rewards over time. My 3* and 4* farms put out a massive amount of stuff, for years, that helped me stay competitive without having to worry about being optimal.

And before someone says that this sort of strategy can only work for me (a long time competitive veteran who's spent), we've got plenty of examples of it working for others, in Roadwarrior's thread.

Grizwald

I open most of my tokens once a month. It's easier to track that way.

meadowsweet

@entrailbucket said:
@meadowsweet the problem with all of the things you've listed is that you can never be certain that there won't a more optimal time to unhoard in the future.
So yes, with hindsight, you can see that you might've made a more optimal choice, but you can never know this in the moment. I think this is why some folks just get stuck and hoard FOREVER, but that's clearly suboptimal -- you never get anything at all!

Aside from the "there will always be a better deal later, you can't hoard everything forever, and never redeeming anything is self-defeating" (which is something I think some players legitimately struggle with) you're still making a case for hoarding, not against. Again, I don't hoard and neither do you, but your claim was:

the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good

Which is simply not true. The game incentivizes, rewards, or "encourages" hoarding, and opening as you go is rarely "just as good".

• I have zero Level 550 characters. I have dozens of champed 5★ but my highest is <475. I get my head kicked in during PVP by Level 500+ characters, mostly whatever the latest meta is
• I had zero stockpiled HP for the December Deals Vault, which I was able to empty once or twice using the HP I earned while it was open
• I had zero spare roster slots and zero duplicate characters when Ascension was announced, because I was just farming unique copies of each character and selling the Max Champ as soon as I could re-roster
• Support Shards have been live for about a month and I've only made 11% progress towards taking a single Support from 4-5★, so at this rate it's going to happen around September or October?

Again, I'm fine with my choices, I understand the trade-offs, I like the dopamine drip of opening stuff every day, but you cannot honestly call my roster / progress / competitiveness / ability to win quickly or place highly "just as good" as someone who hoards.

DrClever

Someone who only hoards will only have tokens and no covers so everyone here is or has been a token opener of some sort, we're just debating the optimum strategy for timing opening.

And deciding what's best there without defining what the end objective is seems doomed to leave people arguing at cross purposes.

Don't let that stop you, of course.

But I'm sure there are people that no one is slagging of yet and that won't do.

You might also want to consider whether a fundamental lack of any balance between characters and teams in the game encourages token opening to be crunchy rather than smooth.

And do the with-bits-in people cause problems for the bitless juice drinkers and the juice providers by selectively distorting the game economy and making tracking and forecasting so much harder?

And do other breakfast items lend themselves to mediocre analogies in this case?

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
@KGB I'd also take issue with the idea that you ever "stop needing" any covers in MPQ, even before ascension.

Certainly this was true before champions, but after that, even 2* covers, cumulatively, roll up into TONS of rewards over time. My 3* and 4* farms put out a massive amount of stuff, for years, that helped me stay competitive without having to worry about being optimal.

And before someone says that this sort of strategy can only work for me (a long time competitive veteran who's spent), we've got plenty of examples of it working for others, in Roadwarrior's thread.

No argument with what you wrote.

I'm just saying that I too will eventually get all those rewards when I open my hoard of tokens. In fact I'm going to do better than you because all my tokens are going to ascended characters and thus better champ rewards at the next tier than what you got at the time.

It's just a question of drip, drip reward strategy (your way) vs big jump at once (hoard strategy). For newer players with lesser rosters (esp those in 3 and below land) hoarding is a much better strategy than drip drip because of the roster slot and ISO crunch so they can target specific things that really advance their roster. Once you reach the end game (essentially in 5 star land with every character rostered) then your strategy looks better (as Roadwarrior has confirmed).

KGB

trewiltrewil

@DAZ0273 said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I've never hoarded any resources, ever, and I've had zero problems staying competitive. (I do have like a billion iso I literally cannot spend, but that's not a choice). If you enjoy hoarding all your stuff, go for it, but the game absolutely does not "encourage" hoarding, and opening as you go is just as good.

I disagree with this for newer players. At least as far as opening LT's/CT's goes. They should not open those until they are ready to legit try and cover a 5 star character. Otherwise they risk getting a whole bunch of 5 stars with 1-2 covers on them before they rotate into classics.

Opening lesser tokens should also not be done unless you have a free roster slot or the HP to purchase a roster slot. Otherwise you will literally be selling the character for ISO.

KGB

Or else they can just buy an ascended 5 1*.

This. It's kind of crazy how quickly you can ramp from zero to having 3 5*s champed and be at least able to get the PVE rewards. You need $20 and 400ish CP... That would give you an ok team for PVE and something where you could play to 12 wins in PVP.

The limiting factor is the SCL now, it's almost a hard timegate. I think a lot of the old new player game is way different (if you want it to me).

If I were starting over I would get to where I can clear max rewards PVE as fast as possible and fill in my roster... That would probably be more fun than hording.

Daredevil217

Whether the game encourages it or not I don’t know. But I can think of multiple times I’ve benefitted from hoarding. Now could I have done okay and been competitive opening everything as I went? Sure. But I’ve definitely gotten more hoarding.

I got my first set of 550s in the anniversary store. I have a bit of buyers remorse because I liked having all my characters around the same level. It felt like I had more viable tools. But I guess my plan is to unhoard either 1) for more viable options (aka I get board Shanging everything). or 2) if there’s something clearly better than the tools I have available. I don’t like Hunter and Peggy is trash. But both Goose and X-23 feel like winners. Maybe I break there even though none are better than what I have. Or maybe I wait for the next Chasm lol.

Tony_Foot

I still won't be opening standards with the fourth batch. I have an ascended Spidey but I want Venom and Juggs too. Until I can buy both of those I'm holding off. The others I'm not so fussed about. If I wanted to throw money at the game I'd do them all but I can't see me ever using the others.