The Gaunlet: Villains, Heroes, & Finale 20 - 23 Sep

CrookedKnight

loroku wrote:

So it seems like the general consensus is that people really like the event, and like the idea of it all, but disagree with the level of difficulty and the reward structure.

I think if the difficulty wasn't so nuts, the rewards would go over better because people would be able to get tons of iso from the nodes without worrying about the last levels scaling up from "really really tough" to "holy **** I am the dead."

(Up to simulator 41! A level 230 Bullseye is such a bastard of an anti-magneto fighter. I took out Juggs on the first try, though!)

mags1587

Whales, Whales, Whales with Deadpool points really does kill everyone. He got me through 41, now I've only got 42 and Essentials 15-18 to complete. Which will be attempted sometime tomorrow as my best characters are all dead and I'm out of health packs.

Unknown

The difficulty in the finale is kinda crazy, but even if I can't finish it, I'm walking away with a ton of ridiculously high level TUs. The lvl 200 windstorms are particularly ridiculous.

Also in the finale after a certain point every victory made me grin, which I haven't while playing this game for ages.

Unknown

Got Psylocke cover.

Passed GSBW node with Ares and 3*Captain America at 114. And the last node i simply used C.Storm and M.Mags combo...again.

I liked the event, it was an awesome change of pace.

I also liked the rewards, after all, it was 3 3*Covers and i'm a 2* transitioning. Maybe because Psylocke and GSBW aren't that popular people weren't that happy. And the fact that you needed a BP to get a BP cover. And i also got a yellow Nick Fury from a token.

The scaling was a bit high, yes. I had to use +3 Purple/Blue AP boost on every match, rely on C.Mags + M.Mags combo every time and still had to get lucky for some cascade or crit damage. There was a match i used Wind Fury three times and still could have lost by match damage. My Magneto was lvl 80 and i was facing lvl 160s midways and lvl 200s near the end.

I don't know how i would have done the event if not for C.Storm + M.Mags combo and +3 Purple/Blue boost. I don't know if Ares, OBW or Thor would match 2,6k to the entire enemy team + 4 turns of stun for this kind of event. After all, you didn't need just blue to unleash Wind Fury. You could just match purple and unleash Polarity Shift. Sometimes i managed to collect blue, unleash it and then collect the purple to cast it again.

So that's another complain, it felt like boosts, luck and combo abuse was the only way to finish the event. And if they want to fix 3*Storm, they definetely need to give her Wind Storm. Maybe get rid of Lightning Strike, since at that point you are pretty much competing with Call of the Storm and Berserker Rage.

I have 1/1/1 Invisible Woman and 0/1/1 X-Force, both at lvl 70. Don't know if that impacted the scaling. Because my only useful 3s are lvl 114 3*Captain America with 3/3/3 and a 1/2/3 lvl 78 Sentry.

I think they need to make goons have their own resource or guarantee their countdown tiles after a number of turns. NPCs fueling 4 AP/turn to a hyperscaled hero is simply ridiculous. Or maybe cut the AP generation of goons by half if they have a hero with them.

Overall, it was a good and different event, and i'm sure they will tweak it correctly next time. Hope they do it at least once a month, like every 3 or 4 normal PVEs, they do a "True PVE" event.

Spoit

I've found that with how high the scaling is, has been pretty invaluable. Some of the 300+ s have enough match damage to trigger anger with just match damage, which you can then use to feed X-force or CtS fairly easily. I wish I had a covered up , that might work too

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

I've found that with how high the scaling is, has been pretty invaluable. Some of the 300+ s have enough match damage to trigger anger with just match damage, which you can then use to feed X-force or CtS fairly easily. I wish I had a covered up , that might work too

My Hulk is underleveled though he wouldn't get any color with Punisher out there and he'd only have red over X Force even if he was maxed.

Unknown

Absolutely LOVED this event.

No grinding required.
No stressing out about rubber banding undermining the time/work put into your ranking at the last minute.
No constantly having to skip over repetitive dialogue.

The matches were challenging without being overwhelming. The rewards were fair. Hope they do something like this again in the future...

Unknown

Ok, just hit the level 275 Juggernaut node. This is just idiotic. Every Mags/Storm spam can't get you past one shot headbutt kills. Dumb, dumb, dumb. If you want to give us challenging nodes, use your brains to make them actually puzzling. Arbitrary stat increases to the point of instant death is lazy, incredibly frustrating, and downright void of fun.

Unknown

I'm having a blast with this event. Wish that you didn't need BP to get BP since I don't have him, but whatever. I've reached the Gauntlet Finale, currently on Simulation 38 and wanted to know if I can get Psy, so from the players who already finish it who is required on the essentials.

Sandmaker

Rievier wrote:

I'm having a blast with this event. Wish that you didn't need BP to get BP since I don't have him, but whatever. I've reached the Gauntlet Finale, currently on Simulation 38 and wanted to know if I can get Psy, so from the players who already finish it who is required on the essentials.

It's the same as the second sub, unfortunately. Pun for the first 3, and BP, GSBW, Punisher for the last three.

Unknown

Sandmaker wrote:

Rievier wrote:

I'm having a blast with this event. Wish that you didn't need BP to get BP since I don't have him, but whatever. I've reached the Gauntlet Finale, currently on Simulation 38 and wanted to know if I can get Psy, so from the players who already finish it who is required on the essentials.

It's the same as the second sub, unfortunately. Pun for the first 3, and BP, GSBW, Punisher for the last three.

I see. Thank you. It's a pity that I can't get her since don't have BP. Oh well, I'll stop after I get the 50 HP. Hope that the devs. are reading this thread and the next time won't be required the same cover that you need to get.

Unknown

I get that it's frustrating to be missing a required character needed to win a cover of the same character but is it really any more frustrating than not having a required character to win a cover of a different character?

Unknown

Besides the "BP incident", I think this PvE is the very first PvE in a while.

Keep up with the good work!

SunCrusher

Muttly wrote:

I get that it's frustrating to be missing a required character needed to win a cover of the same character but is it really any more frustrating than not having a required character to win a cover of a different character?

Personally for me, there's a couple of reasons this is particularly frustrating.

I hesitate to sound so critical because I seriously enjoyed myself with this event in other regards, but in an event where it's me-versus-the-mountain, I really hoped that it would be a case of "earn your way/climb smart and climb hard" situation and not, "Sorry, you only have a 1-day visitor's pass; you really needed a Seasonal pass to access Route 29 in addition to all the other Routes," situation.

If anyone cares to read, I'll explain why this particular situation bothers me.

One reason it's more frustrating is because originally, I was under the impression that, "Oooooh, Punisher was offered last event so he's going to be Essential next event," only to discover that NOT ONLY was he Essential, but so are GSBW and BP.

Like someone else mentioned, it's been a while since we've seen either BP or GSBW so why them? Even in previous PvEs where there are more than one Essential character, the Essential characters were new characters released within a short time span of one another and so they were kind of 'expected' or at least could be 'anticipated'.

GSBW I was lucky on; I collected her for both a log-in reward and token pulls. Black Panther... not so much. Punisher... even before the Deadpool vs MPQ, he was already partly built and no, he is not my only 3* character at all. That said, GSBW and Black Panther popping up out of the blue as Essentials was a real surprise for me with Black Panther being my specific roadblock.

Another reason it's more frustrating is because I saw this event - and I'm sure I'm not the only one - as a chance to EARN my way to the covers old-fashioned style and normally, the required character is NOT also the same as the offered character and in the last few PvEs where this was the case, the Essential characters were also offered as Final Progression awards.

Looks similar to what's going on in Gauntlet right now, but it's not the same because unlike other PvEs where you can at least try and grind your way to the Final Progression reward and then go back to do Essentials, there's no way to 'make up' the missing points in Gauntlet. If you don't have the character, you just don't and you can't repeat other nodes to earn those points and this leads me to my third point:

A third reason I'm particularly frustrated is because I've spent quite some time here in the forums listening to everyone say the equivalent of be patient and work hard while you're in 2* transition land to earn your covers and so here I am AGAIN 'working hard' to earn my covers... except for this particular me-versus-the-mountain 'true' PvE, NO AMOUNT of hard work CAN earn the covers.

In the previous PvEs, even without Essentials, I've sometimes been able to place okay enough to snag the very last tier of Progression rewards and even ranking rewards if I really pushed it and was willing to grind more non-Essential nodes to make up for some of the points I would otherwise earn in Essentials. Though I didn't rank spectacularly well, I was able to collect the Final Progression reward and with the time left, go back to visit the Essentials that finally unlocked for me.

The way this event is structured as it is (and seriously, I really do like it, except this whole deal about Essentials on a me-versus-the-mountain PvE just really bothers me) such a thing isn't even possible.

That said, for me and my roster, this PvE boils down to who has what covers rather than who (player) has the ability, capacity, or drive to face the proverbial mountain and the reason I say that is this:

If I was dying like a fruit fly around the Heroes Essential area without a chance in the world of succeeding luck or no luck, that would be another question. Clearly, in such a case, I am not 'ready' to be going that far and my progression really ought to be stuck at around there and I ought to be content to collect a few extra 2* covers I would probably need in such a situation.

But I have a pretty diverse roster even if it's not 100% fully built out in regards to my 2-3*s and MPQ is at least A LITTLE about strategy (if not, it's at least about numbers given the teams I run with) and since I'm willing to take a few hits in hitting difficult nodes at the cost of downing my major characters at endgame, I've been able to progress decently well.

I'm READY to hit those Essential nodes. I'm READY to 'grow up' with my roster and GROW my roster to include some better characters but this whole business of cockblocking based on who you have in your roster or not and regardless of who else you might have in your roster is the only thing literally putting up a virtual wall.

Yeah, I actually may NOT be ready to hit the final nodes in Heroes (not quite there just yet so I can't quite tell), but if I COULD, it would have been sweet to reward myself with ONE Black Panther cover to add to my roster. I mean, talk about a reward for working hard!

As it is, that's just impossible because if you're missing the points from the Essentials, you're missing the points.

I'll get over it; I'm just a little bummed is all.

Unknown

I have to say this event was very VERY enjoyable. I mean the feeling when you beat some impossible nodes (Simulation 34+) is just not compared to any other event in this game (OK, maybe getting gold from tokens is better).

My main characters where PunPun (Just 3 covers), CStorm, MNMags. Occasionally I had to throw in Thor or AWolvie accordingly for some nodes because I was not allowed to use my A-team.

First gauntlet was not a problem. Went by fast and in a short amount of time. Stormneto can basically eat up similar level enemies. Especially goons that stay and do nothing.

Second gauntlet was enjoyable and I could still blow away enemies with my Stormneto (I actually enjoy too much this crazy combo). But here was my first disappointment. I wanted to get that BP Blue, so I beat everything, but not having a BP at all on me I was more than angry to find out that I could not finish the last essential. So I missed BP Blue FOR ONLY ONE EASY NODE! (Still can't get over it).

Third gauntlet was... well, OMG! As soon as I enter I see some 100+ goons. After beating them I kept telling to myself "You can't really go far here, do as much as you can and focus on PVP now". To my surprise though, Stormneto would clear through the nodes slow and steady. I surely burned all my boosts and even spent some ISO for some nodes, but the thrill of winning some crazy **** character combos was well worth it. Long story short, I reach the Sim 42 and beat it with lvl 209 chars (Sentry at 209 was SCARY!). With a combination of a lucky board and 2-3 Wind Storms, game was over and I won (The key factor was Storm's yellow! Sacrificing a team member at the RIGHT moment is an insta 3k dmg). So after beating Sim 42 I felt butterflies in my stomac. That Psy cover was smiling at me. I start the essentials and not long after I find out that I need BP again for the last essential. I don't know but I have started HATING BP even though he is a great character. I have a personal vendetta with him now.

So, overall the event was far more than enjoyable. The success, especially when not expected, was an awesome feeling. But, and this is a big BUT, why, OH WHY, the fudge would you put BP a requirement to get BP. And if that is the case and let us say I can get over it, WHY, again a big why, WHY THE FLYING DONKEYS is BP again a requirement for getting Psy? At least I had Psy in my roster and I thought I could get her. But NO! Too bad for you that you have no BP. Nobody likes you and The Gauntlet does not want to play with you. Go away!

Anyway, I just needed to express the 1/10th of what I went through when I realised that despite my trumendous (personal) success, I still cannot reach that ultimate prize. You should give me that prize for just beating those RIDICULOUS lvl 200+ Sentries with my 2* roster.

I still want this event to become a pattern though. I love how I could play whenever my Health Packs and heroes where alive instead of when the event would feel like making me play. Keep up the good work. I know you can better this event and I am not complaining because it is the first run of it and it is actually more than nice to feel listened and understood.

PS: You can still reward me that BP and PSY cover, I will forget all about this

Unknown

Absolutely the best PvE EVER.

y2fitzy

Echo everything that SunCrusher said so eloquently.

Have thoroughly enjoyed the PVE, the structure has been good, enjoyed the challenge. But no Black Panther means no chance at one of the 3*, which is irritating.

On the plus, the ISO has come in very useful in maxing my 2* guys and I managed to get a blue hood from a standard token, so all good

SunCrusher

y2fitzy wrote:

Echo everything that SunCrusher said so eloquently.

Have thoroughly enjoyed the PVE, the structure has been good, enjoyed the challenge. But no Black Panther means no chance at one of the 3*, which is irritating.

On the plus, the ISO has come in very useful in maxing my 2* guys and I managed to get a blue hood from a standard token, so all good

I agree; the ISO was at least a good amount (for my use anyways!) so all was not lost. Good to see you pulled a Blue Hood cover!

Hoping that maybe I can get lucky on a last Token or two...

Unknown

Anyone passed the Lv300 Juggernaut SIM40 without a X-force?

In the previous nodes my best team are Punisher(maxed)+Hood(max blue lv102)+LThor(maxed lv128)+boosts……

But with BW + Jugg ,i don't think i stand a chance

Unknown

The event is GREAT! But:

1. They really need to do something with the difficulty scaling! Enemies of almost 200lvl's compared to my not fully upgraded 2* roster is not a funny joke...

2. Essential Black Panther needed to get the Black Panther cover reward? Are they kidding me?!?