The Hulk PVE combat changes and effects

Unknown
edited December 2013 in MPQ General Discussion
As of today, when I went to get back into the top 300 I've had nothing but issues.

Now, by all means, I'm not the best player, nor do I have the best covers. Sitting with a maxed Thor, a lvl 96 IM 40, and several support covers in the 40's, I was able to successfully complete all missions that did NOT require the Punisher (I slept through the end of that tournament and didn't get him icon_redface.gif ) , and I did all these quite easily. I didn't have any trouble except a little with the final mission in Greenland. These were all completed early on the 23rd, early as in 1-3 am central U.S. time.

Now, a day later (3 am on the 24th), I haven't been able to complete any of the later missions because my damage has seemingly been nerfed to nothing, and the PVE villains/whatever you wanna call them are hitting a-lot harder than before. Losing a lvl 85 Thor in 5 turns has never happened before to me except in pvp tourneys when I go against people that are much better equipped.

I understand this post seems like a whiny post, and frankly, I don't care. I haven't seen any patch notes indicating a change has been made, therefore, either D3P is making code changes without patch notes or I've been extremely lucky until this point. This also isn't the first time a I've had a game from a company have suspicious outcomes that weren't documented.

This leads to simple effects that other topics have lightly covered:

The game is quickly heading to a pure P2P game
Meaning players, like myself, that either play without spending or spend very little have to strategize a-lot more and make compromises (I didn't bother with the 3* tourney) or just quit.

Compensation and corrections
With glitches and changes comes more issues/bugs/players getting pissed, eventually the developers will have to give-in or shut-out

Cookie-cutter teams
Nearly every player with a decent cover selection picks the same team set-up for whichever mission. Used to be Thor/C-storm/Daken(or other tile support cover or Jugg...) for a couple weeks. Then it was, and kind of still is Rag based teams. There was the spiderman craze. Eventually, all tournaments will be purely based off who can play the most and has the most health packs.


Now comes the question... Is it just me, or have other players experienced this phenomenon?
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Comments

  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,322 Site Admin
    Koors wrote:
    Now, a day later (3 am on the 24th), I haven't been able to complete any of the later missions because my damage has seemingly been nerfed to nothing, and the PVE villains/whatever you wanna call them are hitting a-lot harder than before. Losing a lvl 85 Thor in 5 turns has never happened before to me except in pvp tourneys when I go against people that are much better equipped.
    We've made no changes to character damage and looking at statistics, the overall level of damage per battle put out by the average team in any given mission has changed little to none (tenths of a percentage point in most missions). I don't know what to say here other than what you're experiencing, if actually the case, isn't the norm. There *are* team setups that are certainly able to do what you say that you may be running into possibly. For example, a mission that has a Grenadier or Pyro feeding Juggernaut/Ragnarok green AP which gets them into their board control rhythms.
    Koors wrote:
    Cookie-cutter teams
    Nearly every player with a decent cover selection picks the same team set-up for whichever mission. Used to be Thor/C-storm/Daken(or other tile support cover or Jugg...) for a couple weeks. Then it was, and kind of still is Rag based teams. There was the spiderman craze. Eventually, all tournaments will be purely based off who can play the most and has the most health packs.
    High end meta changes all the time in any evolving game. At the start, it was Modern Storm, Iron Man, and Black Widow. It evolved into Thor/Storm (Classic)/Wolverine, now it's Ragnarok/Spider-Man/Insert3rdHere. With Punisher and Hulk, we could see that shift, especially in Lightning Rounds where a Punisher can thwack a Ragnarok pretty easily. New characters or rebalances can flip up meta again easily. Other strategies and synergies can be found. All of that changes meta. That being said, we do see a lot of players choosing the same teams for The Hulk missions. Which is completely expected, since the team that we see most often is Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America, all of whom are buffed for this Episode.
  • I haven't noticed any changes to damage whatsoever (except for the correcting of the glitch from a level 15 Rag/1 Jug).

    But your team sounds ill-suited for this tournament. You have zero buffed characters. The key to this tournament for the matches that involve non-HAMMER goons is Wolverine. It's otherwise a painful exercise in boosts and luck.
  • Ir0nF1sh
    Ir0nF1sh Posts: 52 Match Maker
    Hey there. I can also relate to this. I have a level 85 Wolverine, Level 85 Thor and Level 83 Spidey. Even with boosts, that last level with high level Rag, Jug and Grenadier has kicked my **** 3 times in a row. I had completed this previously. Theres no combination of boosts that seem to work right now. Any ideas?
  • Wasn't that the bugged mission? Where the enemies were level 15 instead of 85?
  • Ir0nF1sh
    Ir0nF1sh Posts: 52 Match Maker
    Def not. And for another thing, this hulk is seriously underpowered for this mission
  • mags1587
    mags1587 Posts: 1,020 Chairperson of the Boards
    I had a bad run early yesterday evening where I was getting my **** kicked by a couple of missions (especially one with Rags and Daken). Gave up after being defeated a few times, ate dinner, went back to the same missions (and the same boosts) and was able to complete them fairly easily. I think I was just having bad luck with the starting boards and not being able to get the colors I needed.
  • Ir0nF1sh
    Ir0nF1sh Posts: 52 Match Maker
    Ive had no other issues but putting a high lev rag and jug in the same team is killer. Sometimes the board doesn't give you the blues you need for stunning enemies. Granted I've only 2 covers and would benefit from a 3rd but still. The other missions have been pretty fun though. I was gunning to get 2 hulk covers but i still don't rate him like I do Wolverine. Those feral claws and that healing are amazing
  • I play the steam version, and only spent 5 dollars on hp to get space for recruit.I dont know what version youre playing, but Im doing decently, getting a lot of heroic recruit tokens and isos. icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • Ir0nF1sh
    Ir0nF1sh Posts: 52 Match Maker
    playing on iPhone. doin well also. The level/mission I'm talking about is the impossible one called 'needy'. I think it's in greenland
  • I haven't had trouble at all in the missions while not having any "meta" characters (My *** Spiderman is a pitiful 15 with 2/1/1).

    My team is 85 Wolverine, 85 Thor, and whomever else (Hulk, Punisher, Captain America).

    The play is to boost up:

    All colors
    Red and Yellow
    Green and Black

    The idea is to litter the board with attack tiles (minimum 4 on turn 1). Then Mjolnir's Might. This should kill one character or severely damage. Thunder Strike will either kill a second character or severely damage another it. This may result in green tile matches.

    Feral Claws plus a match may finish of the enemy all on turn 1.

    In tougher matches the enemy my get 2 or 3 turns.
  • I play the steam version, and only spent 5 dollars on hp to get space for recruit.I dont know what version youre playing, but Im doing decently, getting a lot of heroic recruit tokens and isos. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    You play the PC version? And you even paid money for it?

    I can tell you this. You're screwed. You don't know it now, but when you try to play the game on your laptop, or on a different PC, you'll start to ask this question. WHERE THE F*** ARE MY CLOUD SAVES?!?!
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,322 Site Admin
    mechgouki wrote:
    You play the PC version? And you even paid money for it?

    I can tell you this. You're screwed. You don't know it now, but when you try to play the game on your laptop, or on a different PC, you'll start to ask this question. WHERE THE F*** ARE MY CLOUD SAVES?!?!
    You can always transfer the save manually for the moment. It's not all high tech-like, but it's the way files have been transferred for 40 years or so, so it does work. The save files are also small, so they're easy to just email if you don't have a handy flash drive. C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Demiurge Studios\Marvel Puzzle Quest\slot0
  • mechgouki wrote:
    I play the steam version, and only spent 5 dollars on hp to get space for recruit.I dont know what version youre playing, but Im doing decently, getting a lot of heroic recruit tokens and isos. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    You play the PC version? And you even paid money for it?

    I can tell you this. You're screwed. You don't know it now, but when you try to play the game on your laptop, or on a different PC, you'll start to ask this question. WHERE THE F*** ARE MY CLOUD SAVES?!?!

    Why do you feel the need to spew forth all this negativity?
  • Kyosokun wrote:

    Why do you feel the need to spew forth all this negativity?

    Seriously, someone missed their naptime.
  • IceIX wrote:
    mechgouki wrote:
    You play the PC version? And you even paid money for it?

    I can tell you this. You're screwed. You don't know it now, but when you try to play the game on your laptop, or on a different PC, you'll start to ask this question. WHERE THE F*** ARE MY CLOUD SAVES?!?!
    You can always transfer the save manually for the moment. It's not all high tech-like, but it's the way files have been transferred for 40 years or so, so it does work. The save files are also small, so they're easy to just email if you don't have a handy flash drive. C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Demiurge Studios\Marvel Puzzle Quest\slot0

    Oh, ok, that's good to know. Thought I was permanently screwed.

    The saves are still stored server side, right? Basically, is the physical save file just recording your player ID when accessing the servers?

    Or is it an actual save game file, which you can back up in case you need to rollback changes?
  • Mechgouki is just another troll ignore him, I don't think I've ever seen him anything positive to say. If this forum had an block user function I'd use it....
  • In the missions with Grenadier/Pyro with Ragnarok or Juggernaut, the minion absolutely has to die first because he generates 2 AP for just being there, and Ragnarok and Juggernaut has priority over their 10 AP green attack (if they even have 10 AP) which generally results you getting hit by Godlike Power every round and die a horrible death. Don't confuse the fact that you're sometimes able to get lucky. With 2 green AP fed for free each turn, it's a matter of time before a 5r/5g Ragnarok locks you down.
  • Misguided wrote:
    Kyosokun wrote:

    Why do you feel the need to spew forth all this negativity?

    Seriously, someone missed their naptime.

    You know the ticket we talked about? I think I don't have to tell you what their response was.

    BTW, I will be staying up until 6.am for the Hulk event, so, yeah....
  • MTGOFerret wrote:
    Mechgouki is just another troll ignore him, I don't think I've ever seen him anything positive to say. If this forum had an block user function I'd use it....

    It does. Click on the user name, add to Foe list. User's posts will be collapsed to a single line that you have to click on if you want to read it. You'll still see it if someone quotes them, but that's all.
  • mechgouki wrote:
    The saves are still stored server side, right? Basically, is the physical save file just recording your player ID when accessing the servers?

    Or is it an actual save game file, which you can back up in case you need to rollback changes?

    It's an actual save game, but if you tried to roll it back you'd be desynched from the version that the server has and marked for cheating (I presume; I don't know what they actually do). The server always wins.
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