No idea if people will take to it, but thought I’d try starting a discussion about ISO price & value on this here board - comments, additions, suggestions welcomed! 
Current Position
I’ll talk in US $, since those amounts are neater than for us in other countries:
ISO Sale Prices
Dead Drop - 800 ISO - $1.99
Treasure Box - 2,100 ISO - $4.99
Hidden Stash - 8,800 ISO - $19.99
Rich Deposit - 25,000 ISO - $49.99
Mother Lode - 52,000 ISO - $99.99
ISO To Max. (at approx. exchange rate of 500 ISO for $1)
1* with 2 powers - 18,720 ISO = $38
1* with 3 powers - 28,420 ISO = $57
2* with 2 powers - 45,370 ISO = $91
2* with 3 powers - 69,524 ISO = $140
3* with 2 powers - 111,154 ISO = $223
3* with 3 powers - 172,764 ISO = $346
4* with 3 powers - unknown ISO = unknown (upwards of $500)
My Analysis
I must admit that I am one of the ‘enablers’ of the current position, in that I bought the Mother Lode at Christmas (as a treat to finally be done levelling Grey Widow) even though I know ISO is really terrible value on any rational level.
However, that said, I do think the current price scale is doing a disservice to both D3 and customers.
Customers
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ISO is, quite obviously, not good value for money - that a character which can scarcely be considered competitive (1* 3 power) can consume the whole cost of a new video-game in resource establishes a rather clear baseline that ISO sales are not pitched at anyone on a gaming budget (perhaps living on a budget of any kind!).
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ISO sales are not, to be frank, terribly honest; with the way ISO costs-per-level is on a curve, someone just playing the game - without access to excellent forum resources like Shikao’s calculator - could easily see “92 ISO to level” and be under the impression that 52,000 ISO will level their L15 Hulk to the moon and back.
Of course it won’t - it would only get them to L81 and just a third of their overall Hulk ISO goal, where he will actually be worse than lower * characters of that level because of how the curve works.
Now this is not an attack on escalating ISO costs nor the * curve - both of which I consider vital to balance - but it is a fact that nothing in the game except slowly levelling a character of that * band previously gives players any idea of exactly how little character progress ISO purchases actually yield; this can of course result in very unhappy paying customers. -
Regardless of where people stand on how much gaming power people should be able to purchase with real-money, the fact is the roster will get bigger and the difficulty curve (even PvE) will rise as the average roster strength of the player-base rises - with no credible real-money starter pack/special edition/whatever, new players just aren’t going to be able to even approach the game.
When established players are migrating to 4* teams and new players are $150 value of ISO off even putting together Model 35 + Modern Widow + Modern Storm, who’d bother starting this game?
D3
- I have no idea what-so-ever how ISO sales perform for D3, but my own intuition is that ‘whale fishing’ business model (relying on selling a small amount of fantastically expensive products to a tiny subset of players) just is not a great fit for MPQ.
Firstly; this is a connect-3 game & a Puzzle Quest game from D3, which I believe is seen as a casual genre/franchise and not one in which people spend $100s of at once.
Secondly; this is a Marvel licence and - while there are of course fantastically expensive merchandise items out there - I would guess the general ethos of acquiring perhaps the number one intellectual property in the world right now is to attract a broad audience.
Thirdly; ISO is not a premium/prestige product - I have always supposed that cash shop whales seek the greatest power/prestige in their chosen game, but there’s nothing in MPQ that separates Scrooge McDuck’s MasterCard all-stars from Tiny Tim Cratchett who is playing-without-paying a lot of hours from a sickbed this month.
(In other games the ‘whale’ items might be the Hulk With Funny Hat And 5% Higher Health super once-in-a-life-time limited-edition.)
2a. As covered above in players, the in-game less than transparent nature of just how little bought ISO actually does for players must surely lead to some disgruntled purchasers.
2b. Conversely; anyone forum-informed about ISO requirement - aka MPQ’s biggest fans (generally?) - is more likely to disregard it as a purchase entirely.
- It seems likely that the dev aim is to encourage players to aim for higher * characters over-time (certainly 3* characters have dominated recent additions), which does have obvious appeal for getting players to commit and producing a tangible sense of growth.
However the ISO-consumption of rarer characters makes ISO cash purchases exponentially less-relevant, because it is but a drop in the ocean for them; where other games try to tempt impulse buys with $10 for a bundle of lottery tickets, MPQ offers maybe 2 imperceptible tiny mathematical increments for $10 - or $100 for (perhaps) one fifth of a legendary character!
Furthermore; the volume of rare/legendary/5* characters will make the desirability of each individual one less pronounced, and thus less likely to attract the attention of people willing to spend $100s on them (when there are 3 DPS characters who can do what Grey Widow can, she’s less of a game-play target and just one facet of a team build).
