End 1star farming

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Comments

  • Sim Mayor
    Sim Mayor Posts: 309 Mover and Shaker
    Dormammu said:
    Don't feel bad. I've stated opinions on these forums and gotten shredded by people who disagree. You know what I do? I click on the little thumbs-up and 'liked' their post, and replied in a way that let them know I had no hard feelings.

    After that, I noticed them starting to 'like' my opinions on other matters. The truth was, sometimes my opinion or idea was way off base and I had earned their respect by owning it.

    We don't always agree here, and sometimes we even get snarky with one another - that's the internet for ya. But we are a community and those of us who disagreed with your idea did so out of love for this game and the desire to share our passion on these forums - not because we dislike you. We don't dislike you, we just disagree with you on this one point.
    Exactly, well put Dormammu. I'm always willing to "like" a post that respectfully disagrees with me, and I've even tagged a few as "insightful" if they bring up things I never thought of.

    Nobody bears you any ill will, but we do think that the issue deserves to be discussed and reviewed from all sides. 
  • AardvarkPepper
    AardvarkPepper Posts: 239 Tile Toppler
    Jwallyr said:
    It would be nice not to have to choose between knowingly playing suboptimally and engaging with a tedious chore that seems to be unintentional in the game design, but nonetheless confers a minor benefit if you choose to engage in the tedium. It's not by any stretch the biggest problem in the game currently, but would be a QOL benefit for OCD players like myself.
    I agree.  I support effectively ending 1* farming.  I've been benefiting from the practice for a long time but I think it's not good in gameplay terms.

    broll said:
    Jwallyr said:
    It would be nice not to have to choose between knowingly playing suboptimally and engaging with a tedious chore that seems to be unintentional in the game design, but nonetheless confers a minor benefit if you choose to engage in the tedium. It's not by any stretch the biggest problem in the game currently, but would be a QOL benefit for OCD players like myself.
    You're exaggerating quite a bit here.  1* farming is only optimal up to a certain SR and even then the benefits are marginal.  If you don't like it, don't do it...  I stopped it before the SR number because it was boring and it certainly hasn't hurt me.
    Come on now, just *when* was it that the practice no longer becomes optimal?  Level 90?  100?  If you personally stopped because it was boring then you *agree* it's not good in gameplay terms.  But regardless of your SR personally (I am guessing you are quite the veteran yes?  have seen you on forums for quite a while yes?) most new players are not at a SR at which 1* farming is not iso-profitable.
    broll said:
    My 20 tab spreadsheet
    Why not link to that spreadsheet in your signature?  I love me some spreadsheets.  Maybe one with a list of character powers that doesn't require having to look at each character separately?

    broll said:

    My concerns with the request are:
    1.  You're asking them to expend development time, a limited resource, on this which means in turn other QOL things that are wanted/needed by larger numbers of players would need to be put on hold to do this.
    2.  The possibility of them changing the sale prices at all levels when they make this change and breaking actual optimal 2* strats.
    3.  The president of making a request that even the requester or admits is only needed because of his own quirks.
    4. (EDIT) Because you're asking for choice to be taken away from others because you're not opting to use the choice you really want to use. I will always fight against the removal of choice as it's too rare in this game as it is.

    Anyway I've more than said my peace on this subject so I'll stop now.
    .

    1.  I agree it's never good to trivialize work required to accomplish a task.  However in this case, couldn't it simply be a matter of changing the numbers already in place, to effectively end 1* farming?  Changing the XP from 10 to 1, for example, would effectively end it.

    I am not sure the designers intended 1* iso farming, or perhaps even farming in general.  Mind they might have, but I don't see that it makes sense.  Suppose you're even farming 2*s repeatedly, if you're developed enough to champion 4*s, all the 2* farming you're doing is doing nothing but inflating your SHIELD rank artificially and giving some iso and HP gains, right?  Has nothing to do with roster strength, and doesn't SHIELD rank affect minimal PvP rank so *should* tie to practical roster strength?

    2.  I don't see the request regarding 1* farming would break optimal 2* strats - I mean sure it could affect SHIELD experience, but didn't you make some claim to the effect that SHIELD rank bonuses were basically trivial anyways?  (Well even if you didn't in effect, I think they *are* more or less trivial after a certain point; if you can access SCL 9 then what does it really matter?  and there's the issue of artifical inflation).  Anyways you're farming 2* for HP and changing how SHIELD experience works wouldn't affect that.

    3.  Just because someone requests something personally doesn't mean the request is invalid.  By extension, requesting something not be done would also be invalid because all personal requests are invalid.  So let's not go there, right?

    4.  You're framing the OP as "taking away choice".  You could just as accurately frame it as "taking away tedium".  I don't think the OP intends to *punish* players by taking away options, even if that's what it amounts to.  If you argue that 1* farming is indeed iso-profitable (which it is for a long time), if you argue it is tedious (which is is, don't you think?) then it's really more a question of some players engaging in exploits.  And though you could say it's a matter of personal choice that doesn't affect others like 0/0/5 Gambit, if you consider that SHIELD rank affects minimum PvP (which it does, doesn't it?) then the system *should* be changed.

    Sim Mayor said:

    4) The choices we have already aren't bad for anyone but you. Nobody else is complaining about this. Everybody either sells the covers or farms them for experience without making an issue of it.

    And if you're stunned by how much time and energy other people are putting into the argument, you must be shocked, shocked I say, at how much you're putting in to respond to them all.

    Now for a quick personal note before I bow out, please stop referring to this as your OCD. I know people with OCD. They have a very real psychological disorder. You just want a better return on time you're already choosing to spend playing a game.
    Ah come on.  Imagine you had a hundred mosquitoes in your room.  Would you come on to the forums and complain, or open a window or something?  People go through things all the time, it doesn't mean they like whatever it is, or aren't dealing with it, even if they're not making threads on the internet to bring it up.  And really, isn't that how humanity progresses, by dealing with issues rather than just letting them go on?

    As to the OCD note, I agree.  Let's not be calling one thing OCD and another thing OCD when it's not actually OCD okay?  Even if someone does have OCD, these forums are hardly the place to seek proper treatment, seek assistance from a properly licensed medical professional, you know?
  • Alex502
    Alex502 Posts: 181 Tile Toppler
    @AardvarkPepper most insightful comments yet. Thank you for having a clear and workable picture that is understandable, respectful, and convincing. I personally have felt that expanding my list of characters has always trumped my 2* farming needs. Getting that last 3* on my roster, or adding in the newest 4* has always taken up my 2* space, so my opinion on 1* farming? Regardless, the perspective that AardvarkPepper has responded with not only clarifies the original post, but blasted away the extraneous commentary that distracted from the topic. Points to you, sir, and I agree with what you've said.
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2018
    AardvarkPepper said:
    1.  I agree it's never good to trivialize work required to accomplish a task.  However in this case, couldn't it simply be a matter of changing the numbers already in place, to effectively end 1* farming?  Changing the XP from 10 to 1, for example, would effectively end it.
    That would handicap new players and their ability to get into events beyond the beginning SCLs, the players who have a legitimate reason for earning XP off 1-stars.
    I am not sure the designers intended 1* iso farming, or perhaps even farming in general.  Mind they might have, but I don't see that it makes sense.  Suppose you're even farming 2*s repeatedly, if you're developed enough to champion 4*s, all the 2* farming you're doing is doing nothing but inflating your SHIELD rank artificially and giving some iso and HP gains, right?  Has nothing to do with roster strength, and doesn't SHIELD rank affect minimal PvP rank so *should* tie to practical roster strength?
    Farming 2-stars has never been for XP or ISO and it has been a thing since champing was installed, long before SCLs came along and we were all farming 2-stars for a net ISO loss. If a player is at a point of having champed 4s there's no need to artificially inflate SL because you're not blocked out of anything. The XP bonuses are just a byproduct that bring the ISO costs of running a farm back to about even. 2-star farming is for HP, CP, 3-star covers, and Heroic tokens.

    No, the developers didn't intend for players to farm 1-stars. The reason they don't do anything about it is because it would screw up the whole XP/SL/ISO economy. If they felt it was an issue they would have fixed it when they revamped the entire XP system several months ago. The other reason they didn't do anything about it is because it isn't giving anyone an advantage by doing it - they are actually harming themselves by borrowing against the future. It's like borrowing from your own 401k plan - yeah, you get the money now, but if you had just left the money there you'd get so much more money when you retire. If you keep farming 1-stars, all that ISO you're losing by not simply selling them is basically lost when you reach the SL saturation point and it no longer becomes profitable to continue borrowing from the future - the bubble bursts and you're out thousands and thousands of ISO.

    I'm going to use some inaccurate basic numbers for example's sake: let's say the saturation point, where farming 1-stars no longer becomes profitable, is SHIELD Level 100 and in the process of climbing to that rank you farm 1,000 1-stars that would have been worth 100,000 ISO.

    You're still going to get to SHIELD Level 100 even if you didn't farm those 1-stars. It's not even going to take you that much longer because the XP gains from champing 2-stars, 3-stars, and 4-stars rises exponentially. So the player who reaches SL 100 without farming 1-stars now has all the ISO gains from doing so, PLUS they have the 100,000 ISO from selling their 1-stars rather than farming them.
  • AardvarkPepper
    AardvarkPepper Posts: 239 Tile Toppler
    edited August 2018
    @Dormammu:  A good point regarding low-ranked players breaking into higher SCL, but not inherently an argument against ending 1* farming, as the SHIELD level requirements for different SCLs could simply be lowered.  Mind I do not mean to trivialize the point you brought up; working out the details in implementation for an effective solution is always best - and that *would* be quite important to new players.

    Your point regarding iso and 2* farming was quite correct of course.  I mis-spoke, and thank you for taking the time to correctly post the mechanics of 2* farming.

    As to stopping 1* farming - I don't think it's a question of everything having been intelligently designed, and that stopping 1* farming at this point would screw up the whole XL / SL / ISO economy.  Nor do I think it may not be perceived an issue, nor can I quite agree regarding the self-harm argument.

    First, the self-harm argument as I think that's the most easily resolved.  You did state it happens "when you reach the SL saturation point".  But as another poster wrote, to that point at least you are making iso gains that you invest in your characters.  And players will not reach the point that 1* becomes iso-unprofitable for quite some time.

    To use an analogy, you're driving up a mountain in a slow but reliable car enjoying the scenery on the way, while someone else is taking a faster less reliable car that maybe is leaking a little bit of oil just trying to get where they're going.  If you're only moving a short distance then your car cost less to operate and the time difference is not much so you come out the clear winner.  If it's taking a month and you're going over multiple mountains, though, in a couple months you're going to be wherever you are, while the other driver's a mountain ahead.  By the time a couple years later the other car finally breaks down and the other person is walking, it's still taking you a long time to make up the distance.  Which is perfectly fine by you, as you're enjoying the scenery and you like managing a tight economy.  But in the meantime, the other driver has reached their destination more or less, and is now leaning back and enjoying the scenery a bit.  Sure they were wasteful, sure the return trip won't be as economical - *but what if the other driver doesn't care about the return trip*?  What if they just cared about making the destination as soon as possible?

    In farming terms - you champion a few select 3*s and you can do the things 3*s let you do; you champion a few select 4*s and you can do the things 4*s let you do.  In the long term, yes, a character that's 1* farming won't have the same iso, but that's likely years off, and in the meantime, more iso means leveled characters and earning rewards faster and easier.  In practice, sure, I would say you should *carefully select* which characters to level up; just blowing iso on whatever characters doesn't help.  But there is that point at which you have characters with a good number of covers, then you'll start thinking about all that short-term iso you're missing out on, right?

    So on the one hand certainly one can argue that in the long term it's better to accumulate the most possible iso overall.  But on the other hand I think there's a real case to be made for short-term iso gains.

    As to intelligent design - I think we'd all like to think everything was intelligently designed, but I think in practice a lot of times things slip through.  Like the implementation of SHIELD levels and 1* farming, and SHIELD levels relating to PvE and PvP.  It makes sense that there should be *some* sort of system so players with 2* rosters aren't walking into players using covered 5*s all the time.  Then you could say the number of covers that a player applies to a character has some bearing on roster strength.  Imagine the alternative, assigning valuations to each different character and tracking their covers and levels; that's just a nightmare in terms of required computations, where triggering SHIELD XP on adding a cover is quite straightforward.

    But what about the actual implementation?  No matter how many times you farm 1*s or raise 2*s or 3*s, whatever your practices are, generally you are gaining SHIELD XP from the practice.  But does applying additional covers on a just-acquired character really contribute to actual roster strength?  It does not, right?  It's only after you get a utility character and cover them and level them, and even then if it's not of the tier that your roster is effectively at, you've gained nothing.  Generally farming 2*s is not going to help roster strength for a player deep into 3* land, and adding covers to a 3* is not going to help roster strength for a player deep in 4* land.

    I am certainly not going to say the developers were short-sighted or any such thing.  There was a problem to be addressed, and they addressed it.  But I really think implementation would make more sense if SHIELD XP were not rewarded for adding covers or levels to characters below any tier the player currently had a champion in.  (This too would be subject to distortion, but it would at least be *less* distortion.)  I'm not going to trivialize the work involved, but it could be performed (for example) by having the game assign a number to a player whenever that player championed a character - say a player championed a 4*, after that any application of covers to 3*s, 2*s, and 1*s would no longer increase SHIELD XP).

    As to stopping 1* farming from wrecking the economy - the MPQ economy, such as it is, is distorted anyways.  What's one more change?  Would trying to make SHIELD level commensurate to roster strength *really* be a change for the worse?  Or would it be more in line with the actual implementation of how SHIELD level has an effect on PvE and PvP?  What sense does it make for SHIELD level to affect one's maximum PvE or minimum PvP if it is *not* tied to effective roster strength?

    (edit - added clarifications)
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    First, the self-harm argument as I think that's the most easily resolved.  You did state it happens "when you reach the SL saturation point".  But as another poster wrote, to that point at least you are making iso gains that you invest in your characters.  And players will not reach the point that 1* becomes iso-unprofitable for quite some time.

    To use an analogy, you're driving up a mountain in a slow but reliable car enjoying the scenery on the way, while someone else is taking a faster less reliable car that maybe is leaking a little bit of oil just trying to get where they're going.  If you're only moving a short distance then your car cost less to operate and the time difference is not much so you come out the clear winner.  If it's taking a month and you're going over multiple mountains, though, in a couple months you're going to be wherever you are, while the other driver's a mountain ahead.  By the time a couple years later the other car finally breaks down and the other person is walking, it's still taking you a long time to make up the distance.  Which is perfectly fine by you, as you're enjoying the scenery and you like managing a tight economy.  But in the meantime, the other driver has reached their destination more or less, and is now leaning back and enjoying the scenery a bit.  Sure they were wasteful, sure the return trip won't be as economical - *but what if the other driver doesn't care about the return trip*?  What if they just cared about making the destination as soon as possible?

    In farming terms - you champion a few select 3*s and you can do the things 3*s let you do; you champion a few select 4*s and you can do the things 4*s let you do.  In the long term, yes, a character that's 1* farming won't have the same iso, but that's likely years off, and in the meantime, more iso means leveled characters and earning rewards faster and easier.  In practice, sure, I would say you should *carefully select* which characters to level up; just blowing iso on whatever characters doesn't help.  But there is that point at which you have characters with a good number of covers, then you'll start thinking about all that short-term iso you're missing out on, right?

    So on the one hand certainly one can argue that in the long term it's better to accumulate the most possible iso overall.  But on the other hand I think there's a real case to be made for short-term iso gains.
    Your analogy doesn't hold any water with me. Yes, it may take a long time - even years - to reach the saturation point. But at my SL, the ISO gains from rising in SHIELD levels, after subtracting the value of the 1-star covers, isn't even enough to champ a single 2-star, after doing so for a year (I've done the math, see an earlier post I made). But the ISO loss from selling all those 1-stars over all that time would be enough to champ a couple of 5-stars. So you can't convince me that farming 1-stars is allowing anyone to make short-term significant gains over someone who isn't because that simply isn't true.
  • AardvarkPepper
    AardvarkPepper Posts: 239 Tile Toppler
    Dormammu said:
    you can't convince me that farming 1-stars is allowing anyone to make short-term significant gains over someone who isn't because that simply isn't true.
    I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE SIR

    No, just kidding.  Eventually I will have to make a new account and break down the numbers for the guide I'm writing and really study 1* farming and SHIELD levels and all that, but that's quite a ways away.

    Besides which, in the long term you're right anyways.

    Besides, the specification regarding "significant gain" is an important distinction.  Most of the time it *wouldn't* be significant, sure.  If a player was playing smart.  Why invest iso in random characters?  One shouldn't, of course.

    But I think the argument, such as it were, conceding your points - is less a question of *significant gain* and more a question of "what does one have to lose"?  In the long term, of course, as you wrote, players lose out.  But how *long does it take to get there*?

    Mind as I see it you personally are already at that point.  But for players that are on the way up, I think perhaps it may be different.  Perhaps.  But let's table that until one of us brings the numbers, yes?

    Dormammu said:after subtracting the value of the 1-star covers, isn't even enough to champ a single 2-star, after doing so for a year (I've done the math, see an earlier post I made). But the ISO loss from selling all those 1-stars over all that time would be enough to champ a couple of 5-stars.
    Ah come on now.  A 1* sells for 100 iso.  Championing a 5* costs 220,000 and raising it and leveling it initially 553,929.  I mean I get you're saying it's a lot, and I believe it's a lot.  But how many 1*s are you pulling anyways?

    As to *you* profiting from 1* farming, well come on now.  You're Dormammu!  You can't really say most players that play MPQ have the same SHIELD level as you.

    Come to think on it, maybe you really are pulling that many tokens . . .
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think someone worked out that the break even is at shield rank 160 or something.

    I never bothered with 1*s, I don't need ISO anyway.
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    Ah come on now.  A 1* sells for 100 iso.  Championing a 5* costs 220,000 and raising it and leveling it initially 553,929.  I mean I get you're saying it's a lot, and I believe it's a lot.  But how many 1*s are you pulling anyways?
    I pull about 10 1-star covers a day, give or take. Not a lot. I'm mostly a PvE player. People who play PvP more than I do pull significantly higher amounts. But at 10 a day, that's 365,000 ISO per year. (A PvP player probably earns 15 1-stars a day, which would be 547,500 ISO per year.)

    (Note: A 5-star costs 551,296 ISO to go from Lv 255 to 450 and 20,000 to promote.)

    Now, I am currently at SL113 and I need 4700 XP to go up a level. If I were just gaining XP from farming 1-stars I'd get 36,500 XP in a year's time. 36,500 divided by 4700 = 7 SHIELD levels per year.

    I get 57,500 ISO per level x 7 levels which would come to 402,500 ISO. But subtracting the ISO I would have gained by selling the 1-stars that comes to a net gain of 37,500 ISO a year   :/

    Now, these numbers aren't exact because every time I go up a SHIELD level it costs more XP and the ISO rewards slowly climb, lower SLs need less XP but get less ISO, but it gives you an idea of what little there is to gain by farming 1-stars, and of course all these gains are an illusion because all of it is borrowed at the expense of selling your 1-stars.

    I'd be trading 365,000 ISO per year to get 37,000 a little sooner. Not a good deal.
  • Jwallyr
    Jwallyr Posts: 165 Tile Toppler
    I don't care to get too invested into this thread again, but I feel like the short-term gain of increased ISO flow at the earlier stage of the game is (or was, before 50+ saved covers) a significant benefit for players who are (or were) still suffering the pinch of limited ISO preventing them from champing every rostered character in order to save covers that would otherwise die on the vine. The introduction of 50 to 100 saved covers (depending on tier) after I began this thread handily removes the short-term ISO pressure, meaning players are not as strongly incentivized to scramble for short-term ISO gains, and instead might feel freer to buy pulls, meaning that the roster slots being taken up by 1stars could be better spent on new 3s/4s/5s.

    So while I still think that, pre-saved-covers, the incentives for 1star farming are all still in place, and the negative impact of pushing players artificially upward in Shield Rank (which gates your minimum for pvp and stuff like that, which continues to be a clumsy and stupid way to address PvP slumming, but that's another thread all by itself), the game has changed since I wrote my original post and I think that there is now no really solid reason to engage in 1star farming due to the flexibility that the Saved Covers feature provides.
  • ErikPeter
    ErikPeter Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    If they wanted to buff the sell price of 1-stars to 130 iso, I'd take it.
    If they wanted to nerf the XP gain of a 1-star cover to 8 xp, I'd .. not care.

    So I'm all for the devs addressing this problem. 1-stars are so irrelevant past day 10 or so, they might as well just nerf the xp gain.

    However, MPQ makes tons of money from people buying roster slots. Time and again it seems their priority is to encourage roster crunch. Which leads me to believe 1-farm is (untentional or not) a "win" for the devs, at the expense of the players willing to deal with the hassle.

    So I think it's very unlikely that they would alter it, even though it'd be a one-line nerf. Good luck.
  • Rod5
    Rod5 Posts: 585 Critical Contributor
    Let me get this straight - you’re moaning about having to do something you genuinely don’t need to do?

    Here’s a tip - don’t do it and be happier.
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,289 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't get it.  1* farming is very easy and not time consuming ( on the Steam Platform at least).  It isn't a major HP issue either for most players because you don't actually lose anything since you invest in roster spots.  The only players that may have difficulty in it are newer players who struggle with roster slots.  The beauty if it though is that you can always sell the 1* in a pinch for roster slots.  These players should be spending all their HP on roster slots anyway.
  • Speed283
    Speed283 Posts: 122 Tile Toppler
    I’m not sure if I’m calculating one star farming correctly. A one star IM with 13 covers cost 28,000 ISO to get it to lvl 50. I can only get 2,600 by selling it. Why would I want to farm 1* characters??
  • Speed283
    Speed283 Posts: 122 Tile Toppler
    Thank you very much OJSP. You always answer my questions and that is greatly appreciated!
  • Speed283
    Speed283 Posts: 122 Tile Toppler
    Plus: you are correct...this wasn’t the right thread, but being a newbie, just picked a one star farming thread and punted!
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    Thanks to Milestones, I had to farm 1*s for a week or so just to get those rewards.