Poll on Single Map PvE as requested by Hi-Fi

GuntherBlobel

Having learned my lesson long ago, I generally avoid these new character PvE things. But since it fell on a lazy weekend, I gave it a shot. I was ranked <#50 over the 3 day period and continued to play even after it was any any fun, because it seemed that I should keep my rank for the Ranking rewards. But then, I fell asleep during the final 2-3 hrs, while putting kids to sleep. I ranked #153, which fell below the mark. That's exactly why I don't play these things. The Story is only enjoyed a couple times, the Events go on far too long, the Ranking rewards are too difficult to win, and on and on.

I much prefer the Prologue or the Gauntlet. I really wish Demiurge had abandoned this type of PvE format a year ago, instead of putting so much effort into complicated mechanics like Rubber-banding, Scaling, Point Refresh Counters, and now, multiple End-times. All of this effort, just to keep Ranking Awards?

Ranking awards are why I quit playing PvE a long time ago. It has little to do with single maps or limited Rosters or anything else.

Unknown

Great to see such a poll running. I haven't gone through the posts so I wont post anything as it may have been said already. I just want to say thank you to the devs for the opportunity given.

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Having learned my lesson long ago, I generally avoid these new character PvE things. But since it fell on a lazy weekend, I gave it a shot. I was ranked <#50 over the 3 day period and continued to play even after it was any any fun, because it seemed that I should keep my rank for the Ranking rewards. But then, I fell asleep during the final 2-3 hrs, while putting kids to sleep. I ranked #153, which fell below the mark. That's exactly why I don't play these things. The Story is only enjoyed a couple times, the Events go on far too long, the Ranking rewards are too difficult to win, and on and on.

I much prefer the Prologue or the Gauntlet. I really wish Demiurge had abandoned this type of PvE format a year ago, instead of putting so much effort into complicated mechanics like Rubber-banding, Scaling, Point Refresh Counters, and now, multiple End-times. All of this effort, just to keep Ranking Awards?

Ranking awards are why I quit playing PvE a long time ago. It has little to do with single maps or limited Rosters or anything else.

For me, it is the mix of all these, including limited rosters and rubberbanding. The last PvE for Blade, i finally went to bed for some hours sleep at position 7, after working the entire campaign time for getting at least two covers for blade. When i woke up, i was already down to 57, out of rankings and on my way to work, when the event ended. Expecting somehow the very same for Juggs, i decided to not get into this unfriendly kind of event anymore and cancelled the Juggs heroic, as i need my health packs for the PvPs, where i can get at least some fair battles with all my chars i have been working for.
Especially annoyed i was by rubberbanding, limited chars, as if you are not lucky and have them levelled properly, you run into scaling issues a lot and , of course, in this special one, the essential nodes with juggs and tons of goons feeding him with AP and bombing you with crazy CD tile damage and/or heals every other turn.

Unknown

Things I would have also voted for: Heroic Roster is boring. Heroics PvE's are too restrictive. Can we please be done with Heroic PvEs.

Unknown

I'm wondering, what problem is in 'New character released via Single Map PvE'?
I thought the consensus was that Single Map are not fun, and if new character is involved you have to participate anyway. But if Single Maps were balanced/fixed, then this wouldn't be problem? I mean, I'm not a fan of releasing so much new characters, but I don't think it's way this point makes. It's more like 'I'm ok with event being terrible bloodbath of pain and tears as long as 'I' don't need to do it'.

Unknown

2.5 hour refreshes that promote your day / night being dictated by MPQ's schedule (especially with only one cover outside the top 20, there's little room for relaxing) are a killer. 5 hour refreshes would at least be less restrictive but 8hrs would be my preference.

Late starting rubberbands on Heroics are hillarious. Play all 4 days for 70k points, or just the last day and potentially get more points? El Stupido.

End times finally are being addressed, but on all types of PvE (one map or many) it's still absolutely critical to play the last hour of any event or sub.

Unknown

Nivrax wrote:

I'm wondering, what problem is in 'New character released via Single Map PvE'?
I thought the consensus was that Single Map are not fun, and if new character is involved you have to participate anyway. But if Single Maps were balanced/fixed, then this wouldn't be problem? I mean, I'm not a fan of releasing so much new characters, but I don't think it's way this point makes. It's more like 'I'm ok with event being terrible bloodbath of pain and tears as long as 'I' don't need to do it'.

Wel... Yes. Exactly. Juggernaut Heroic is a cruel joke. Juggernaut Heroic with new heroes is just **** disgusting.

CrookedKnight

Nivrax wrote:

I'm wondering, what problem is in 'New character released via Single Map PvE'?
I thought the consensus was that Single Map are not fun, and if new character is involved you have to participate anyway. But if Single Maps were balanced/fixed, then this wouldn't be problem? I mean, I'm not a fan of releasing so much new characters, but I don't think it's way this point makes. It's more like 'I'm ok with event being terrible bloodbath of pain and tears as long as 'I' don't need to do it'.

For me it's that a new character barely counts as a reward anymore. The last time they ran Heroic Venom it sucked, but when it was over (and I got my double rewards ) I'd gone from a pretty **** 3/2/2 LazyCap to an optimally covered, PvE-destroying 3/5/5 one. The event was a grind but the prize was a fully covered character who's going to be extremely helpful for quite a while. Meanwhile my reward for Heroic Juggernaut is the first few covers for a not-so-useful new character who's probably just going to help me do essential nodes in the next PvE and then get thrown into storage along with Beast and She-Hulk. Essentially, rather than being a reward herself, Mystique's only value is to help me do well in the next PvE, in hopes that there will be an actual reward there and not another new character. Which there might not be, because we've now had three competitive PvEs in a row with new character rewards!

Unknown

Heroics need to go however . . .

If devs insist on needing filler content while they think up new stuff - make the rewards old characters only - this will allow vets who don't need them to take a break, and new people to earn those covers they covet

I don't need pve 24-7 if I've already done the same event a dozen times - especially if it's just doing the exact same nodes over and over watching the goon-juggs light-show

And daken scaling is still madly broken. Come on 5k+ damage for a 5 blue ability??

Luckily hung in top 10 and the detriment of a 5k iso season pack but didn't really want to babysit a scoreboard all of sunday evening


What happened to the perfect minimal rubber banding we've had in the more recent events where you could actually build a lead?

Unknown

I think no matter what the rubber band is like, strong or weak, people will hate it. A strong rubberband makes all your early effort meaningless, while a weak rubberband forces you to grind those nodes again and again until you're kittying sick of them (which, in the case of Heroics, plenty of players are already before they even start).

What bothers me most is
the reward structure - nothing overly useful for progression, and you need to score top 20 (of 5000 people brackets) to get more than one cover in individual rewards, so you're forced to score high, therefore grind hard... and you end up fed up really soon. (Colognoisseur can confirm that I've exposed my alliance mates to several rage rants including that Mystique can go play with the Tiny Kitty over the course of this PvE.)
the limited roster. To me, PvE is about experimenting and having fun with characters I don't use so often. Being limited to 8 characters only pretty much takes that fun away (especially if 3 of them are kittying useless 1* that get outleveled during the first clear already). If I'm to have fun, I'd like to have my roster at my disposal (or at least a larger part of it). After all, I do have a large roster for something. What's the point when I can't use it?

Unknown

Rico Dredd wrote:

the limited roster. To me, PvE is about experimenting and having fun with characters I don't use so often. Being limited to 8 characters only pretty much takes that fun away (especially if 3 of them are kittying useless 1* that get outleveled during the first clear already). If I'm to have fun, I'd like to have my roster at my disposal (or at least a larger part of it). After all, I do have a large roster for something. What's the point when I can't use it?

This was hugely exaggerated in the last heroic where it was ALL about getting BP's black (and maybe yellow) then hitting the match over button. Everyone else was there to make up the numbers, possibly with the exception of GSBW if the match went on long enough.

I was actually pleased to have 7 usable chars for this one, last time I had 5 (and 3 of them were useless). Roster limiting makes sense from a financial point of view for D3 though, so I doubt it'll disappear.

wymtime

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Rico Dredd wrote:

the limited roster. To me, PvE is about experimenting and having fun with characters I don't use so often. Being limited to 8 characters only pretty much takes that fun away (especially if 3 of them are kittying useless 1* that get outleveled during the first clear already). If I'm to have fun, I'd like to have my roster at my disposal (or at least a larger part of it). After all, I do have a large roster for something. What's the point when I can't use it?

This was hugely exaggerated in the last heroic where it was ALL about getting BP's black (and maybe yellow) then hitting the match over button. Everyone else was there to make up the numbers, possibly with the exception of GSBW if the match went on long enough.

I was actually pleased to have 7 usable chars for this one, last time I had 5 (and 3 of them were useless). Roster limiting makes sense from a financial point of view for D3 though, so I doubt it'll disappear.

The problem is waiting for 12 black with no AP stealing while the enemy only needs 6 AP to headbutt you. Even boosting +3 to black makes this tough. You throw in Rag's as a TU and you are spamed with Green and cascades. This event reminds me of Mike Tyson's Punch out where if Mike Tyson hit you, you went down. The only differnce is you have to keep replaying this event over and over again instead of it being the end game. If it was not for a new character I know I wanted to rage quite this event a couple of different times especially with the season ending at the same time.

Unknown

Remove the competition in pve. Prologue was awesome cause you played when you wanted and could unlock nice node rewards. Didn't want to grind it out? Fine. Don't.

With pve having a bracket it's just a glorified pvp with a pve veneer on it.

Make new stories and start calling them chapter 1 2 and so on and put the cover rewards on hard nodes.

Unknown

A few of my problems:

1. No margin for error: One of the fundamental problems with these is that - with the hyper-limited roster and the need to grind, grind, grind - one bad cascade towards the end of the tournament can literally cost you the PVE. You're frequently stuck using the same three people on the hardest nodes because they're your only chance, and - given the game's harsh punishment of losing, literally a single cascade may mean the difference between a top 150 or not.

2. Very little connection between effort and reward: This is actually a combination of a few different problems - the "single cascade means end of PVE" problem is one of them. Also, it's more important that you play at the right times than play well, given how thins are structured. You never know who will be needed ahead of time, so people with the right character get a boost, while those without get boxed out. The thing that locked me out of getting either of the non-blue covers was that I joined when a bracket was half-full. There's a lot about placement that's random or completely out of the player's control, and that's both stressful and frustrating.

3. Repetition: You have 8 characters, 3 or 4 of which will be usable on the toughest nodes. You have to hit those nodes a bunch. There's a tremendous amount of overlap between characters on different nodes: maybe a dozen or so characters over and over. Functionally, that means you're forced to use the same few character on the same few nodes over and over and over and over and it's dull, frustrating, and extremely unsatisfying, especially since you're just getting 20 iso over and over again.

A few ways to fix them:
1. Add subs - this gives more prizes in the middle, varies things up during the course of it, and just makes it better in almost every way
2. Vary up allowed characters - Change up the allowed characters every 24 or 36 hours to take some of the rote tedium away
3. Change up the nodes - This was exactly the same sets of nodes it was last time. It doesn't get more fun the second or seventeenth time.
4. Stop introducing new characters during them - Part of the frustration of this is knowing that - if you don't get the new character - you're also locked out of placement in the next PVE, too. That makes what is already tedious and frustrating extra-stressful on top of it. Given that character have started regularly getting introduced in back-to-back PVEs, there's a real risk of these locking you out of the next several characters until you can can get whatever's needed for an essential. Heroic's should probably have big prizes, but not ones people are going to seriously resent being locked out of. A big pile of ISO and HP is fine. The new character isn't.

In any case, I would recommend taking Heroic Juggernaut and Venom completely out of the rotation until they can get fixed.

Unknown

Have Heroics be non-competitive. Pick who your characters are at the beginning of the event - and those characters are no longer usable during the entire event, except for the essential (this includes PVP). Have the progression rewards be frequent and have something awesome at the end - a 4*, maybe.

If the rewards are dynamite enough, there could be an HP buy-in for the event and it could run concurrently with other PVE. Because HP buy-in events for PVE make sense to me WAY more than PVP events.

Unknown

I think it's overwhelmingly clear that there is no simple fix with these type of heroics. These need to be taken back to the drawing board and replaced with anything else. They say the grass isn't always greener on the other side but the heroic grass is a desert.

fnedude

Okay, one of my main problems is because how I play (about 2-3hrs per night), but not during the day, I can't compete with those who play all day whenever they want (hey work and family takes lots of time). I don't have a problem with their play style, but in a "competition" like this, I lose out, because I can't compete. I have to continuously grind the same opponents 5-6 times an hour, where they wait for them to refresh to full points, and they get full points after every battle (thus them netting more points with the same number of battles).

So while I finished w/ 54K points (I know, I was -> <- close) I placed 196th. So 45 places lower than the last person who got Mystic, and I got Thor-Red (

So after all that grinding, I was nowhere near the "elites" who placed higher, so I got the big donut from the event. Thanks.

I was somehow able to get BLADE on his event, but looking back at it, it had to be who was featured. So that means if I'm lucky with a "featured" character that's high on my roster, I can get the new hero, if not, i'm screwed at getting the new hero. Well I guess it's time to wait until their PvP event comes up, and try for the cover then.

What's the fun in that?

It would be better if you could reward the people that got (lets say 50K, just so I could get the reward in this example) the new character, but no iso, no HP, that the TOP 150 receive (they still get those bonuses). I don't know how you could do it with the reward structure, so the TOP 150 people don't get the 50K reward, and then being <150. Maybe a huge "If->Then" condition.

pmorcs

I'm actually okay with the basic idea of the Heroic, even as implemented. The single-map version kind of sucks, but whatever.

The thing is, it needs to be .. more rare. These are now coming like every other PVE as if it's a standard thing. That's kind of burdensome. Dial it back a bit - make it special - boost the rewards! - and it becomes cool again.

Unknown

2:24. Can't...stand...the...griiiiiiind.

Unknown

You know what really grinds my PVE gears?

Grinding!