PvE and roster diversity

simonsez

So, when healing got nerfed, we were told it was to reward deeper rosters and promote roster diversity. "What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches", was the quote. At this point, I would love to know how I'm supposed to use the breadth of my roster if, in PvE, we're up against an overbuffed hulk, bp and thor, with over 60k health between them? How many of our characters are capable of dealing with that? The match damage alone can end up crippling you. And if they get off any abilities, forget about it.

In order to win, you need to max boost and start chaining abilities almost immediately.

You know, like the way spidey and cmag used to work. Remember when they got nerfed, it was said "don't worry, it'll be reflected in scaling and you won't see lv395 opponents anymore"? Clearly that didn't happen. So what options are left? There are unsustainable options, like using Storm's passive to inflct lots of damage, or doing a Patch/Hulk combo, or using whales with DP points, but in order to do well in PvE, it is necessary to beat these overbuffed opponents over and over and over again, so unsustainable options don't help. The number of characters that are useful in repeatedly beating nodes like this seems pretty limited.

Don't misunderstand... this is not a complaint that healing should be changed back; this is not a complaint that PvE is too grindy; this is not a complaint against overbuffed opponents; this is not a complaint against nerfing characters who can aggressively chain their abilities.

What I'm saying is that it is illogical for all of these things to coexist. I'd really like an explanation as to how we're expected to utilize our deep and diverse rosters in events like this.

Unknown

In Thunderbolt Mountains I used:

X Force
Captain America
The Hood
Loki
Magneto (3*)
Thor (3*)
Sentry
Punisher
Hulk
Falcon
Daken (3*)
Blade

Granted the first 3 accounts for about 90% of the action, Loki is required, the last 3 is for mopping up easy nodes, and the other guys are used either due to character lockout or not having enough health pack to get certain people up. For example I'd probably prefer to use Thor over Sentry, Punisher, or Hulk for the 'green guy when X Force isn't available' but there isn't enough health packs to go around to heal Thor let alone anyone else, so I rotate those 4 guys between a 3 hour period block and hope I can spread out damage enough for all the 'no Wolverine' nodes.

I think roster variety is only possible if there are variable roster lockout. Basically every fight with Wolverine forces you to come up with something creative for your green guy because you absolutely don't have enough health packs to keep the #2 green guy healed given how hard they are.

Unknown

Don't forget that in addition to wanting to promote roster diversity, some crazy cupcake of a developer thinks "some people enjoy difficult decisions on who to keep" when it comes to roster slots.

SnowcaTT

dearbluey wrote:

Don't forget that in addition to wanting to promote roster diversity, some crazy cupcake of a developer thinks "some people enjoy difficult decisions on who to keep" when it comes to roster slots.

This. Roster diversity should read both HAVE diverse roster (i.e.: lower HP slots needed to keep them all) and USE diverse roster (i.e.: lower scaling, character balance).

When scaling was turned off I really enjoyed trying 2* Marvel yellow to try to cascade into match-five for Hawkeye. Interesting! Less interesting is using Sentry/Loki (essentials) Ares/Daken - the only roster I possibly could against anything half difficult.

fmftint

Then throw in survival nodes where those healers are essential to complete

Unknown

For thunderbolt mountain i used
Loki
CStorm
MnMags
Capy 3*
Hood
OBW
I did have to take a small break (20min) to finish the last 3 missions to get sentry. Then i used a combo of these 6 (and thor) to grind the nodes. And yes, I am fighting really hard opponents (lvl200+)

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

Granted the first 3 accounts for about 90% of the action

Yes, that's pretty much what I was getting at. And for the wolv-lockout nodes, if you're using LadyThor, no rotation needed, which would make your short list even shorter.

The impression I get is that the devs really think we can mix and match and sub teams in and out to deal with regen times, but with maxed out opponents, we're too locked into a very short list of what can work.

simonsez

dearbluey wrote:

Don't forget that in addition to wanting to promote roster diversity, some crazy cupcake of a developer thinks "some people enjoy difficult decisions on who to keep" when it comes to roster slots.

I guess the silver lining is that they're making most of your roster irrelevant anyway, except of course when they make them required. But since they don't give us a schedule of events and prizes ahead of time, it's pure guesswork not a "difficult decision"

GrumpySmurf1002

For the last sub (which is really the only one I played), I used:

XForce, LThor, LCap, LDaken, Sentry, Hood, Falcon, Panther, Patch, Deadpool, Loki, OBW, Ares, Daken, cStorm, mMags. The two hardest nodes were really the only ones where I was restrictive.

The only reason I didn't use more (like Torch, Fury, Blade, Groot, Mystique) is because they aren't covered/leveled enough. I suppose I could've used Torch/Fury on the easy nodes instead of magStorm, but I like pulling them off the bench once in a while.

The difficult nodes (to me) is what promotes the diversity. If all the nodes were trivial, I could've gone through the whole thing with XForce/LCap/OBW and been fine. Knowing the big guns will get beat up a bit is what had me constantly swapping out in the easy and essential nodes.

FWIW, my hardest node (wolvie/gsbw/hawkeye) was ~265-270 at the end. Wolvie/Falcon/Goon was around 190ish, another one was 210ish. Hulk/Thor around 185-190 also. So not the "I maxed XForce and 4Thor and see nothing but 395" scaling, but pretty hard relative to the strength of my roster.

Unknown

I totally agree that their published reasoning for pretty much all their changes is laughable, borderline insulting to its "customers", but must say for the last event I used a whole bunch of different characters. The 7 day grind basically forced me into this, as the thought of repeating a node for the 20th time with the same three people would have driven me nuts.

Not so sure on the latest event though. With the speed the Hand goons get up and running, and the "several rounds" nature of one node, it kinda narrows down the field of viable characters quite a bit.

But then I have massive reservations about this event anyway. Thoroughly enjoyed the first playthrough but am already damn glad I am not grinding this event. I really do think they are going out of their way to see how far they can push the limits of their playerbase, as grinding this event would be even more of a time sink than other events. And that is crazy to think about.

simonsez

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

FWIW, my hardest node (wolvie/gsbw/hawkeye) was ~265-270 at the end. Wolvie/Falcon/Goon was around 190ish, another one was 210ish. Hulk/Thor around 185-190 also. So not the "I maxed XForce and 4Thor and see nothing but 395" scaling, but pretty hard relative to the strength of my roster.

Phantron, Phaserhawk and Polarity have explained it better than I could, but facing 185 Hulk/LT with 3's isn't at all comparable to facing 395s with 4s. The scaling of hp and damage is totally out of whack. Even a 4 like Fury is useless. You trigger demolition? Awesome. Now do it 5 more times, and maybe you've wiped everyone out. Good luck keeping him around long enough when he's got 1/3 of the HP Hulk has. Xforce and LadyThor are pretty much the only options you have. You can't even rotate their support much, since feeding them AP as quickly as possible is necessary for grinding.

And a further clarification... I don't want any of this sounding like sour grapes... I did fine in this PvE. But the whole time, I couldn't help but think, "is this REALLY how the devs want us to be playing?? It doesn't feel like it should be at all"

simonsez

hermanbloom wrote:

the thought of repeating a node for the 20th time with the same three people would have driven me nuts.

Yes, it does. Best explanation of what prompted my post.

GrumpySmurf1002

simonsez wrote:

Phantron, Phaserhawk and Polarity have explained it better than I could, but facing 185 Hulk/LT with 3's isn't at all comparable to facing 395s with 4s.

I understand that, that's basically what I said, though in admittedly a roundabout way.

I'm saying that while I didn't have that 4* star difficulty, my hardest nodes were pretty difficult. A 265 2* Wolverine is no picnic for 150 Thor/lCap/Hood either.

fmftint

simonsez wrote:

hermanbloom wrote:

the thought of repeating a node for the 20th time with the same three people would have driven me nuts.

Yes, it does. Best explanation of what prompted my post.

Add in Survival and you get to play the same node, with the same characters 20 times FOR NO REWARD!

20

Unknown

I tend to be a bit of an oldball. I quite often have 5 or 6 "teams" for the nodes so I can spread the damage around so everyone back to nearly full health by the start of the next cycle. But when you start getting close to the 395 levels half of them stop working because they not fast enough. (I not worked it out but you probably got around 25 turns of match damage before your teams at deaths door)

Take the 2 spy on solider node in hells kitchen when it was 325+ it only takes 2 AoE to wipe any team and just one single shot many characters. You also got to get thought the best part of 12K damage before one is dead and the tile start coming pace that can be handle reasonably well.

Colognoisseur

Over the course of the last two subs Prodigal Sun I used these characters.
Devil Dino, Fury, 4hor, xforce, black panther, gsbw, blade, steve rogers, capt. marvel, daken, deadpool, falcon, torch, loki, cmags, mystique, grocket, she-hulk, mostorm, the hood, punisher, lazy thor, obw, modern hawkeye, marvel now mags, cstorm
I used 26 of my 57 characters. Roster diversity allows me to get the very most out of my health packs. It makes getting wiped annoying but not disastrous. You don't need a sledgehammer to solve every node. There are plenty of combos within those characters I used which allowed me to use just what is necessary to win. My scaling presented me an enitre sub of 395's for the last six clears in Hell's Kitchen. My diversity allowed me to take that problem on by being creative in team make-up and survive a clear. It also makes it fun. When I am constantly switching out teams; each clear doesn't become a dread filled slog of the same team against the same team over and over.

Roster diversity does exactly what the devs say it will.

The problem is with so many characters being released; having roster diversity actually exist for anyone except whales like me is problematic.
The cost of roster slots, the dilution of covers given out as reward at the 3* level, seasons encouraging people like me to score high for my alliance to get the cover and take up space from someone who can use it.

The devs have designed a game which does reward roster diversity but they also have designed a game where achieving it is extremely difficult.

simonsez

Sumilea wrote:

I quite often have 5 or 6 "teams" for the nodes so I can spread the damage around so everyone back to nearly full health by the start of the next cycle. But when you start getting close to the 395 levels half of them stop working because they not fast enough

Yes, we're in the exact same boat.

simonsez

Colognoisseur wrote:

My diversity allowed me to take that problem on by being creative in team make-up and survive a clear. It also makes it fun.

You are truly the McGuyver of MPQ. Trying to take down lv395s with something like a Torch or Hawkeye feels comparable to defusing a nuclear bomb with a paper clip. One of these days you need to write "Colognoisseur's Guide to Formations You'd Think Would Never Work".

SnowcaTT

Colognoisseur wrote:

The problem is with so many characters being released; having roster diversity actually exist for anyone except whales like me is problematic.
The cost of roster slots, the dilution of covers given out as reward at the 3* level, seasons encouraging people like me to score high for my alliance to get the cover and take up space from someone who can use it.

Whale: Roster diversity only possible for whales.
D3: We like you to "enjoy roster diversity!"

Unknown

The only reason you need to spread damage around is because there are a lot of 'no Wolverine' and 'no Captain America' nodes this time around. If X Force can be used, there's no reason to use another green user because X Force heals back up at the end of every fight when combined with Captain America for stunlock, and usually not having Captain America doesn't stop you from dropping a Recovery in the last 3 turns especially against level 395s who will give you plenty of time to use Recovery once you have the board somewhat controlled due to their massive HPs. While it is pretty interesting figure out which green guy to use for which node, had X Force been an option on those nodes you would never use any green user but him unless you want to just make things harder for yourself.