Unstable ISO-8 - July 18-24

wade66

Since I'm not really interested in another character to complete until some of my others are done and only want the progression rewards, I have been waiting for the essentials to reach about 800-900 pts and then doing them and 2 or 3 high value nodes.

Couple this with doing all the nodes once at the beginning of each "sub" I am at around 12.5k pts. With both myself and the event a third of the way complete I should pull the 40k close to the end. At worst I will have some extra grinding at the end, and if I don't make it, oh well.

Unknown

HairyDave wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

If rubberbanding is like what it was last time they did this event, its pretty much a waste to play anytime before the last 2-3 days of the tournament. Joining a bracket before then just puts you in a bracket of grinders and forces you to play more and scale more when you could just be doing minimal work for your covers.

And that's exactly what I would have done but I want to have a decent shot of picking up the Steve covers from the progression rewards so I jumped in earlier than I might have normally.

My ISO-8 Hoarders is ONLY up to 195 now...

Everyone will pick up Steve Rogers covers if they do a few nodes each 2.24 hours during the last day or so. From my calculations above you start seeing the grinders pick him up in another 60 hours. There will be still another 60 hours for the event to run which is more than enough time to ride the band to 40K points assuming you can do the nodes.

Unknown

As I'm doing the essential nodes for this round, I'm thinking of how embarrassing it must be for our heroes to be defeated by (literally) common thugs.

orionpeace

If you get a bad board it is easy to get wiped.

I had one this morning that was a total bag of Skittles. Only one option to match each turn until the pistols and machines guns began echoing in my ears.

It wasn't pretty.

Unknown

Those iso-8 hoarders, Don and his friends, are up to 245.
Slowly getting to the point that it's either a flawless victory, or a grizzly death. That's not fun.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

Those iso-8 hoarders, Don and his friends, are up to 245.
Slowly getting to the point that it's either a flawless victory, or a grizzly death. That's not fun.

245? I got 328 ones! Which is just plain silly

HairyDave

j12601 wrote:

Those iso-8 hoarders, Don and his friends, are up to 245.
Slowly getting to the point that it's either a flawless victory, or a grizzly death. That's not fun.

I was doing it earlier - at a mere 215 - and almost lost CMags to a sniper shot.

Hitman left him with 5(!) hit points

Unknown

is it just me but it seems the scaling of mmr doesn't reset this time per reset in the main event?

Unknown

Baltias wrote:

is it just me but it seems the scaling of mmr doesn't reset this time per reset in the main event?

I was afraid something like this was going to happen. The lack of subs in this event probably has a lot to do with it, since lately when the subs turn over is when we've been getting some relief from runaway scaling. The turn over of nodes in the main in this event doesn't seems quite as kind.

New nodes are up and the delightful Daken/Bullseye tag team fight is starting for me at 170. And I've been slacking. My personal scaling seems pretty mild. Assuming somebody at the mothership doesn't flip a switch and turn down the pain at some point, the last few days might turn out to be very nasty.

Ducky

Iso-8 Heist for me is at 308 while Iso-8 Hoarders is only 245. 308 Daken and Bullseye paired with a Thug is not fun.

Unknown

DuckyV wrote:

Iso-8 Heist for me is at 308 while Iso-8 Hoarders is only 245. 308 Daken and Bullseye paired with a Thug is not fun.

I didn't even look at mine at lvl 340, since ht Heist in Spain one was at lvl 298 and venom with just one cascade wiped my team on turn 3 after a muscle had put down two strike tiles!

Unknown

This is really crazy. How many times have they run this event and the scaling still has not been addressed? I wonder why they don't have pve's end on the weekend. Typically, if there are problems with a pve, they happen towards the beginning. It would be really nice for some one to ease of the scaling down to only insane levels.

This should really be interesting towards the end (especially if the scaling is mostly community based). So far, the environments have not been the most help. And as someone else noticed, the goons seem to be laying out cd tiles faster with shorter times. Usually, essentials help make up for the scaling. However, lazy cap has been out for a while and is pretty easy to get at least one cover in this tourney. So, I don't see essentials bailing out people like other pve's.

The funny thing is with the limited health packs and powerful enemies, people would love to be able to use their entire rosters. I just don't see that many characters being able to handle the nodes being thrown out. I even considered using bag man, but he can't keep up with a 3 cd pistol being thrown out every single turn.

Unknown

skydivearcher wrote:

DuckyV wrote:

Iso-8 Heist for me is at 308 while Iso-8 Hoarders is only 245. 308 Daken and Bullseye paired with a Thug is not fun.

I didn't even look at mine at lvl 340, since ht Heist in Spain one was at lvl 298 and venom with just one cascade wiped my team on turn 3 after a muscle had put down two strike tiles!

Yeah, this is insane.

Heist in Spain is outright bonkers.

Double goon Yellow generation means that a new Threaten CD tile can be placed on the board every other turn. Any one single Threaten the executes provides enough Strike tile damage (currently at +1230 and quickly climbing) to easily down an entire roster, let alone 2 more insane strike tiles being added every other turn.

Add in a single cast of Venom's dirt-cheap stun, and the game is all-but-guaranteed to be lost in very short order.

By this time tomorrow, at current pacing, nothing will be playable outside of the Essential nodes. (And I really don't envy anyone on the double Muscle/Yelena Essential without an advanced roster...)

Unknown

I've been playing the nodes once per day and scaling seems okay so far. Don't have much to show in terms of score but I figure that can wait until the last day.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I've been playing the nodes once per day and scaling seems okay so far. Don't have much to show in terms of score but I figure that can wait until the last day.

I am in the same boat I gotten next to no score at all, done 4 nodes in total for just 7.6K points, going to say around max rubber band distance doing nodes for 1.5K to 2K a pop until last 24H but currently my Iso-8 heist is only 141 and Heist in Spain 113 nothing to bad yet.

Unknown

Sumilea wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I've been playing the nodes once per day and scaling seems okay so far. Don't have much to show in terms of score but I figure that can wait until the last day.

I am in the same boat I gotten next to no score at all, done 4 nodes in total for just 7.6K points, going to say around max rubber band distance doing nodes for 1.5K to 2K a pop until last 24H but currently my Iso-8 heist is only 141 and Heist in Spain 113 nothing to bad yet.

How are you two so sure that rubberband will be effective enough in the last day? Are you assuming lazy devs didn't change the scoring structure from last time?

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

How are you two so sure that rubberband will be effective enough in the last day? Are you assuming lazy devs didn't change the scoring structure from last time?

You pays your money and takes your choice. If they change the rubber band half way through then it might all go wrong but then its my fault for trying to game the system. However if it stays the same as it is now 24h is more than enough time to pull the rubber band in.

Unknown

Does scaling get pushed back a bit after a new set of nodes appears? Iso-8 hoarders was at level 220+ before the node change and now it's level 150+ goons. Or is it because this technically counts as a "new" node so there is not much community scaling yet on that node?

NorthernPolarity

HairyDave wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

If rubberbanding is like what it was last time they did this event, its pretty much a waste to play anytime before the last 2-3 days of the tournament. Joining a bracket before then just puts you in a bracket of grinders and forces you to play more and scale more when you could just be doing minimal work for your covers.

And that's exactly what I would have done but I want to have a decent shot of picking up the Steve covers from the progression rewards so I jumped in earlier than I might have normally.

My ISO-8 Hoarders is ONLY up to 195 now...

Err... All the nodes are on a single map. This means that all missions played on the map will be rubberbanded to the highest global score out there. So for example, if the top score out there is at say 20k points, then im going to get rubberbanding until i hit 20k points, regardless of when i joined. Im sorry to say, but grinding for the first 5 days and playing missions that arent fully rubberbanded is pretty much a waste of time except for the iso rewards: youd save far more time just joining later and getting into q slacker bracket, and riding full rubberbanding nodes to victory. Each of my nodes gives me 1.8k points for instance, so i just need to minimally play and ride the max rubber back to the point where i stop getting rubber, and then grind the last 1.5 days semi optimally for a top 20 position. And since it rubbers to the global point leader, this strategy will end up getting you as many points as if you grinded heavily for the entire week since you rubber up to that score. My current bracket leader (joined my bracket today) is already up to 20k points, and he did that today just off of rubberbanding. I wont get as much iso from mission rewards, but i think its a small price to pay for easy 3* covers, minimal scaling, and countless hours saved. Iso hoarders is level 111 for me as a result of this strategy: moral of the story is to play lazily and be rewarded =D.

HairyDave

I'm not grinding - one pass through every node, maybe two, is enough for me. Well it's enough to keep bouncing between top 200 and top 30 anyway.