The New Character ISO paradox

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I like Blade.

I’d go so far as to say I like Blade a LOT. This character is awesome. He fills a niche in my team that is missing (actives on black and purple? Sign me up!), has solid AP steal, and has good synergy with a lot of my other characters. I even have a decent chunk of his covers. I could almost make him viable.

…If I had umpteen bazillion ISO.

And given that he’s so far behind, the ISO trickle is so slow, and I have other characters that are sitting around at max covers and 130, including an XForce which is at 3/4/3 (just one black or two green covers away from being stupid good), I can see no justification to level Blade. Not when my ISO could go towards fielding a character who I already consider using on a regular basis, and who’s halfway there.

And this is for a character I actually know I want to use. Mystique is another one where I’m not sure if I would use her (hey, a 3* analogue to OBW? I can dig it)… But even if I had max covers right now, the ISO simply isn’t there, and it’s unlikely to be there for months or years. Why should I level these characters? My LThor is at 150 and needs 40k. My C.Mags is at 135 and needs 72k. My torch is at 132 and needs 78k. My hulk is at 130 and needs 80k. My Xforce is at 132 and needs probably something like 120k, and that’s not even the final level cap, that’s just as far as my current cover set gets him. And that’s ignoring my Daken (who still needs a few pink covers and as a result is sitting around 100), my BP (needs black, sitting at 100), my Captain Marvel (needs to be better, also at 100)…

…You get the point. I have all these characters who are sorta halfway there. When should I put ISO into Blade? Or Mystique? Or even Deadpool (hey, he’s a high tier hero who happens to be sitting in my roster with max covers at 72 because I can’t use people with less than 130 at this point and I don’t have the ISO to get him there)?

The rate at which covers are released and new heroes are brought on is so vastly disproportionate to the rate at which ISO is given out that there’s simply no chance for transitioning players to use new characters. By the time I’m done leveling one character, 10 others have come out, and the rate of ISO is the same. Honestly, when another new one comes out, I’m just gonna see “is it better than one of the 3*s I have sitting at 40 in my roster because I can’t rationally spend ISO on them”, and dumping whichever one is the worst. Probably beast, and he has 12 covers and is still awful.

So what’s the solution? Is it “buy ISO”? But the pricing is obviously such to discourage buying it with real money. What’s the goal here? Should we not be leveling new heroes?

2

Half of my fun is to decide which heroes to levelled based on my needs. 2 weeks ago I was sitting on 180k iso and could max levelled cmag, bp, dp, CM. I decided not to levelled any of them cos I wasn’t really in need of a new max lvl 3.

During mystique pve, bp became an essential character. I was still hesitating between levelling BP, and just keeping the iso for cmag. I kept my bp at 130.

Towards the end, I decided that a max bp is essential.for a good placing, so I dump iso into bp to make him max. As I got 3 mystique cover I did feel that bp was worth it, even though he is not seeing much action now.

I personally feel that if you only look at the outcome (max roster, max character), you won’t enjoy the game. The process is more important and much more fun than the destination.

3

I don’t think anyone is expected to have every character maxed. If you like Blade, put your ISO into him for the next month. Max him out, and move onto the next.

I maxed out my LCap, then I brought my X-Force to 221. Now I’m putting ISO into the Hood. Characters in PVP I try to boost a bit if I can, but 80% of my ISO goes into one focused character.

4

I think what I did was that I basically ignored ALL new characters until I had my core roster leveled up. Once you do that, you can make enough iso just playing PvP / PvE (I ignore LRs) to level all of your new characers to 135ish.

5

I typically let characters earn for themselves. If it’s their featured PvP or they are essential in PvE I put iso into them at that time. Once you reach about 140 I consider the final push to 166.

6

For now I’m just getting them up to maxed 2* match damage (level 104 for 3* and level 107 for 4*). I recently leveled my X-Force to 107. I’m also ignoring new characters because I kinda have to. I will think about maxing 2x3* when I have enough covers on them.

7

if we had double ISO weekends like twice a month that would help a lot.

8

Pretty sure the OP isn’t asking for a strategy from current players. If you’re a vet you know how to manage. This is more about does it make sense from a game design perspective; especially when you compare the current game state to the previous one. Previously you were able to earn enough ISO to reasonably level characters. So if you double new character introduction, conservatively, but don’t double ISO earnings, then you have now halved player progress.

9

Except half the character releases are complete duds. You really shouldn’t be wasting ISO on trash like icon_beast.png
or icon_doctoroctopus.png

10

I’m considering skipping the crap myself if I don’t have enough Iso in the future. Not sure if I’ll be able to do that (that’s psychological, you know), but just the way I stopped “instamaxing” characters upon release, I may also stop buying the needed extra covers and using my Iso stock.

I’m really on the edge of burning out.

11

Honestly, this is a regular problem in games when it comes to collecting things to compete. Seriously, just take the Pokemon approach. Find your team, stick to it until you can find replacements then work on them. Sadly, this only works with PvP. You’re SoL in PvE though. A strong core will bring you the ISO for others over time.

12

Please get rid of the 20 iso reward. It’s so demoralizing when you win that really hard game and come up with 20 iso.

13

Huh? It doesn’t make sense to ask them to drop the iso reward. Though it’s menial, the amount adds up. I rather have some iso per game than have no iso per game.

14

Really, there’s no need to do that. Pick your battles and go for heroes that you really like.

I skipped colossus, beast, and doc oct pve entirely. I grind hard for dp and mystique, as I find their skills kinda good, I like the character AND my schedule allows me to grind.

Take it easy man, and you will find joy in slowly getting your max character. You may to adopt colog methodn of just buying covers instead of iso.

15

People don’t realize that leveling up your characters IS the end game. After having a core of maxed 3*'s, there’s really nothing left to do in this game. I reached this point a little while ago, and there’s no one on my team that I need to put more iso in. Now I just throw iso at random secondary characters because there’s no important characters left to max. If I’m deciding between the last levels of Lazy Cap or Lazy Storm, who cares? It doesn’t matter. I could throw iso into the last iso-pit levels of XForce, but it doesn’t really make a difference to his effectiveness, except to make him a couple match-3’s harder to kill.

Many people seem to think it should be easier to have every character in the game and have them maxed out. Once you’ve done that, there’s nothing left to achieve. That IS the end game.

16

…And then you’re expected to lug them around to complete difficult PvE nodes, and use them in PvP. Which is lovely.

17

Let’s be honest, how much would they really do, even leveled to 166?

18

agree. In fact It’s actually better to keep them unlevelled, since they won’t tank any color, and you won’t waste previous health packs on them.

19

Hey, not gonna argue with you there. It’s still a pain in the butt to have to fight a team of 200s with only two dudes.

20

You could not be more wrong.

If you haven’t maxed Xforce and Lcap yet and think that you’re done, it’s time for you to rethink about your strategy…