Unstable ISO-8 - July 18-24

Unknown

HairyDave wrote:

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.

I'm in a **** bracket. I've been grinding the Essentials and doing a single pass on the rest and I can barely crack the top 300.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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.

There is an inherent risk with this strategy, and we've been lucky to avoid it in the last couple of events and that is server outages. I still see occasions when after a match I don't get my points added to my total, but I suspect that is an internet issue on my end. But I still see signs of server issues when my score takes a few minutes to update.

The last time a server blackout happened basically if you didn't have the points, you weren't going to get them. Like I said we've not seen server issues lately but I personally rather not run the risk of not being able to get points and need them than have the points and not worry about catching up if the server does decide to take another doozy.

Heck even just now my friend lost his progress on steam version of the game, he can not access his characters or his progress in either event. Thus he is stuck with what points he has acquired upto the point he lost access to his characters and progress til a CS person fixes his issue.

Unknown

I've settled into going middle of the road for this event. I'm too lazy to do the whole hit every refresh thing (the last time it almost killed me), and also **** scaling. But I don't have the courage to just hang all the way back and believe in the power of the almighty rubberband. So I'm going half way, letting the grinders grind, doing two or three passes on each set of nodes several hours apart to get the most out of it. I've been bouncing between places 150 and 20, and it gives me confidence I'll be able to make a run at the end for all the covers. Fingers crossed it holds up.

HairyDave

Thugpatrol wrote:

I've settled into going middle of the road for this event. I'm too lazy to do the whole hit every refresh thing (the last time it almost killed me), and also tinykitty scaling. But I don't have the courage to just hang all the way back and believe in the power of the almighty rubberband. So I'm going half way, letting the grinders grind, doing two or three passes on each set of nodes several hours apart to get the most out of it. I've been bouncing between places 150 and 20, and it gives me confidence I'll be able to make a run at the end for all the covers. Fingers crossed it holds up.

That's basically what I'm doing.

Hedging my bets against a server outage/weak rubberband/internet failure and whatever I end up with will have to do.

over_clocked

gobstopper wrote:

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?

Half of our alliance haven't started the event yet At the very worst we would be able to get individual covers due to easy main brackets, I'd hope. At best, we will save ourselves some grinding and scaling, achieve same progression as everyone else, and ISO is easier earned in Versus anyway.

HairyDave

Any hints on how to get through Heist in Spain?

I've just watched it tear up Patch/OBW/LazyCap and Punisher/CMags/LazyCap without really making an effort. Real fun watching Tommy Guns go off because I've been snared

Unknown

HairyDave wrote:

Any hints on how to get through Heist in Spain?

I've just watched it tear up Patch/OBW/LazyCap and Punisher/CMags/LazyCap without really making an effort. Real fun watching Tommy Guns go off because I've been snared

I cheesed it with Hulk and LazyThor and let strike tile drop then venom matches trigger anger -> board full of green tiles in 3 turn swing hammer a couple of time all dead. Add a 3rd to stop the tommy gun.

HairyDave

Sadly neither of mine are in a fit state to help but that has got me thinking - MStorm or MNMags for general board smashiness might be worth a shot.

Edit: It worked... mostly. Still lost Psyduck and CMags got pretty trashed but MStorm's board shaking got me through it - even just clearing out all the environment tiles (more yummy hot dogs!) made a huge difference.

Unknown

HairyDave wrote:

Any hints on how to get through Heist in Spain?

I've just watched it tear up Patch/OBW/LazyCap and Punisher/CMags/LazyCap without really making an effort. Real fun watching Tommy Guns go off because I've been snared

I had a succesful attempt with Cap, Hood, Falcon. Get 5 blue asap and pray that Redwing removes the right countdowns.
Then focus on red and let UberCap do his thing.

over_clocked

What goons does Heist have? I'm almost tempted to join and see for myself, but nah. 3,5 days of Heroic Juggernaut is still too much. Which also had crazy rubberbanding and was bad for my nerves.

dr tinykittylove

HairyDave wrote:

Any hints on how to get through Heist in Spain?

I've just watched it tear up Patch/OBW/LazyCap and Punisher/CMags/LazyCap without really making an effort. Real fun watching Tommy Guns go off because I've been snared

The Muscle strike tiles are frightful and fast. What levels are your goons? Mine are 155s, but I find it generally doable with 135 Punisher/102 (pre-buff) Steve/94 OBW for full rainbow match damage, minor board shake+strike tiles, ap steal, heal/countdown delay, minor AoE+attack tiles, tile overwrite on red, sometimes even bonus yellow protect tiles. Whatever colours the board comes up with I can use, unless I get a really bad board and not enough for anything, bye bye health packs.

HairyDave

locked wrote:

What goons does Heist have? I'm almost tempted to join and see for myself, but nah. 3,5 days of Heroic Juggernaut is still too much. Which also had crazy rubberbanding and was bad for my nerves.

It's a Thug and Muscle (and Venom). So much yellow generation.

I think I just got really **** boards both times it screwed me over. And Venom seems to magic up enough black to Devour me every time - and at L140+ it really hurts

Unknown

My Iso-8 Heist has Thug/Bullseye/Daken at lv287.

Heist in Spain has Thug/Venom/Muscle at 240.

I used up all 5 healthpacks and I'm close to throwing my iPad against the wall. This is more or less unplayable. Working as intended?

dr tinykittylove

HairyDave wrote:

locked wrote:

What goons does Heist have? I'm almost tempted to join and see for myself, but nah. 3,5 days of Heroic Juggernaut is still too much. Which also had crazy rubberbanding and was bad for my nerves.

It's a Thug and Muscle (and Venom). So much yellow generation.

I think I just got really **** boards both times it screwed me over. And Venom seems to magic up enough black to Devour me every time - and at L140+ it really hurts

I focus on killing the goons and denying venom black and purple. Punisher whittles everyone down, Widow steals all the random ap being generated and matched. Any serious damage I can't avoid I let Cap tank as long as it doesn't kill him. I've managed to fire off Sentinel of Liberty almost every match. Slow and steady battle of attrition until Cap can knock one goon dead, then everything gets easier.

Edit: also try to always keep 9 blue ap as backup in case you really can't stop half a dozen tommy guns/threatens/pistols from going off. I wait until the countdown reaches 1 for max delay.

Unknown

JessyC01 wrote:

My Iso-8 Heist has Thug/Bullseye/Daken at lv287.

Heist in Spain has Thug/Venom/Muscle at 240.

I used up all 5 healthpacks and I'm close to throwing my iPad against the wall. This is more or less unplayable. Working as intended?

I feel your pain, that Thug/Bullseye/Daken node at 275 is kicking my ****, one purple match and any match I make only deals 1 damage.......****.

mohio

To 2 things that have been discussed lately - I just joined last night around 11:30 PM (so 7 hours ago). My leader was already at 21k by the time I checked when I had done a couple missions and I was at 4k. My first pass gave me 9.5k (was max rubberband until the last mission I was just inside the threshold), second pass 2.5 hours later put me to around 16-17k, then my final pass 50 minutes ago got me up to 22k. This put me in I think 7th place or something. Anyway, speaks to how easy it is to rubberband your way to the top whenever you decide to start.

As for the other thing - I've been running team Lazy with Thor/Cap/Daken (all "max" covered - daken just 5/4/4 for now - thor maxed, cap to level 160, daken to 140) and that has been good enough for all of the nodes I can use that team so far. For the nodes with Daken as an enemy I've been swapping in cMags for Daken. Haven't needed to use a single healthpack in my 3 clears, although LC has gotten bloodied up quite a bit each time. It helps he's at 12.6k life though.

Unknown

Scaling is getting pretty rough. The game should be tough though. Personally I hope we all get scaled out. This joining 5 days late and reaching the same progression as the grinders is unfair. I would love the last two days he all but unplayable to make people think twice about that strategy. I do understand the the forum would explode with anger and all people could do to keep their sanity would he rage the forum and convolute some explanation based on d3 being Greedy.

over_clocked

RageFace wrote:

Scaling is getting pretty rough. The game should be tough though. Personally I hope we all get scaled out. This joining 5 days late and reaching the same progression as the grinders is unfair. I would love the last two days he all but unplayable to make people think twice about that strategy. I do understand the the forum would explode with anger and all people could do to keep their sanity would he rage the forum and convolute some explanation based on d3 being Greedy.

If the event has no subs, why not use the rubber to - no, not to our advantage, but to make our lives easier?
And you forget that for every 2* or 3* roster being scaled out there are a couple of 1* rosters having a cakewalk against lvl 10+ enemies.

HairyDave

locked wrote:

RageFace wrote:

Scaling is getting pretty rough. The game should be tough though. Personally I hope we all get scaled out. This joining 5 days late and reaching the same progression as the grinders is unfair. I would love the last two days he all but unplayable to make people think twice about that strategy. I do understand the the forum would explode with anger and all people could do to keep their sanity would he rage the forum and convolute some explanation based on d3 being Greedy.

If the event has no subs, why not use the rubber to - no, not to our advantage, but to make our lives easier?
And you forget that for every 2* or 3* roster being scaled out there are a couple of 1* rosters having a cakewalk against lvl 10+ enemies.

Particularly if they happen to have a solo covered Steve or Psyduck.

Unknown

The rubberband is indeed crazy strong in this one, and point generation is slowing down considerably because of scaling issues.

The combination of the two always results in an ugly situation where everyone ends up with roughly the same score and a player's final position is only as good as their performance in the last 30 minutes of the entire event.

On the other hand, lately, Demiurge has employed some tricks up their sleeves to discourage late starters. Recent events with disabled rubberbanding on the final round tried to mitigate this issue somewhat.

So, in an event where playing the system is clearly to the player's advantage, what are the rules of Calvinball this time?

I think I see what might happen (removal of all Normal track nodes, leaving only 200+ Hard track nodes for late starters to work with), but will need to see if the trend holds after the next node reset.