Are people still hitting the hard sub-events?

Dragon_Nexus

Well...obviously people *are* playing them otherwise the leaderboards would always be empty ¬¬

What I mean is, do people still hit these regularly and clear each node? I've found the last few events that have a Normal and Hard mode I clear normal once, then maybe do a node or two in Hard mode. Either because the levels are so high it ends up crippling me afterwards, or because the easier nodes in the Hard mode usually give about 300-500 compared to the 650+ the somewhat harder required nodes give, so it feels pointless bashing my head against three level 175 minions for 350 points when I could fight Juggernaut/Venom/Daken at level 160 and maybe get twice the points. Or die.

I used to be able to clear all the nodes once through in the past and maybe come out a little bruised, but generally healed up by the 2.5 hour refresh. Now I have to really pick my battles. Hell, sometimes I don't even open all the nodes up because I see a group of three level 180s and just feel like it's totally not worth it.

Come to think of it, why do we have a Normal and Hard sub-event at all? Challenge is one thing, but when I'm throwing characters into the coal fire to fuel minisqule progress that ultimately screws me over because I have to wait much longer for my health packs to return it starts to feel more like a death march.

fmftint

As someone bouncing in and out of T2, yeah I'm doing them

FierceKiwi

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

What I mean is, do people still hit these regularly and clear each node? I've found the last few events that have a Normal and Hard mode I clear normal once, then maybe do a node or two in Hard mode. Either because the levels are so high it ends up crippling me afterwards, or because the easier nodes in the Hard mode usually give about 300-500 compared to the 650+ the somewhat harder required nodes give, so it feels pointless bashing my head against three level 175 minions for 350 points when I could fight Juggernaut/Venom/Daken at level 160 and maybe get twice the points. Or die.

I'll typically do all the nodes in a clear depending on event (Simulator Hard I'll do the nodes once then pick and choose latter on). I've slowed down in the current couple of hard subs because Healthpacks have been at a bit of a premium with Earth's Mightiest ending.

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Come to think of it, why do we have a Normal and Hard sub-event at all? Challenge is one thing, but when I'm throwing characters into the coal fire to fuel minisqule progress that ultimately screws me over because I have to wait much longer for my health packs to return it starts to feel more like a death march.

Would you rather have 12 nodes in a single sub half of them being nearly unbeatable and only half the rewards for the total event?

mohio

I'd say I can usually clear them maybe 2-4 times all the way through, then they get into range where obviously i CAN do it, but I don't really feel comfortable doing it without using iso boosts. Now iso boosts in pve is a really silly thing to do, but for a really good reward (i.e. when i was grinding for top 2 in simulator) I'll do it happily. Even then I wasn't hitting those Sim 4 and Sim 7 nodes after about a day. Just not worth the risk of 3 health packs to your best PvE guys.

This event the payoff is definitely not worth it as I'm hardly doing 1.5 total clears and staying top 25 or so and I'm really only looking to get the top progression and top 150. Also all the juggs nodes are a big turnoff since you could be facing a health pack from even a fairly under leveled juggs, and these are definitely not that under leveled.

Dragon_Nexus

FierceKiwi wrote:

Would you rather have 12 nodes in a single sub half of them being nearly unbeatable and only half the rewards for the total event?

I'm not sure how that's different to a normal event and a hard event...

FierceKiwi

You get a standard token just for participating in a sub it's something...and since most people are struggling too and skipping nodes you probably finish higher and get a marginally better lotto ticket and maybe even a bit of HP (the Hulk is a terribly stingy result in that regard though);

Unknown

The Hulk hard nodes are much harder than their level would indicate due to the rather unfair combination of AP pump and since the sub reward is not so great it's not necessarily worthwhile to risk getting wiped out, especially for something where the overall placement reward is fairly irrelevent as anyone who can compete for the top 10 placement in a sub (needed to get even 25 HP) is not going to have problem finishing top 150. I do the essentials plus whatever that doesn't feature an unreasonable combination of goon/villian, and sometime you might only have one node that fits this qualification and that's okay. I skipped the essential with a Grenadier after the first time too. I could do them but there's no reason to have a net loss of iso 8 and having extra health packs is useful for other events.

Unknown

FierceKiwi wrote:

You get a standard token just for participating in a sub it's something...and since most people are struggling too and skipping nodes you probably finish higher and get a marginally better lotto ticket and maybe even a bit of HP (the Hulk is a terribly stingy result in that regard though);

I think with the time slice changes you don't even have to participate because I can see that I'm #275 or whatever as soon as a new sub begins with 0 points. The worst that can happen is you drop to #1000 but you'll still get your standard token.

dider152

Yeah, I'm doing all the nodes. It's not particularly easy, but once you have the right characters with the right moves, it becomes easier. Back when Hulk was still antagonistic, I beat him with an Original Black Widow (no lie), either one of the Captain America's, and Original Thor as the tank. Worked well. Didn't figure that out by myself, had to ask around for a good tactic.

smecher

I tend to repeat the nodes of the Hard sub-events, except the ones with the Juggernaut. If I get again on the receiving end of these three-turn in-a-row headbutts I will need therapy.

That's usually enough to keep me in the top 100, which is good enough considering how tight the health packs feel in this event.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The Hulk hard nodes are much harder than their level would indicate due to the rather unfair combination of AP pump and since the sub reward is not so great it's not necessarily worthwhile to risk getting wiped out

This
Crickey! at 90 days in I have never been able to get Ragnarok but his / juggling that wipes my team is glorious to behold.
Horrible, locked-out, cascade-of-pain, jaw-dropping action.
I wish I could get him in my roster

thanos8587

i usually clear each node once for the guaranteed reward then come back and pick off the essential for cage (i got no punisher) and maybe one other one or two more times. seems to be plenty to get a top 50 and saves alot of health packs. based on scores there are people grinding them and i say more power to them. just not worth it especially for these goon AP pumping nodes that can get out of hand quickly.

simonsez

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

What I mean is, do people still hit these regularly and clear each node?

I am, but don't ask me why. Was planning on taking this one easy...

Unknown

I'm with the others who do every node at least once. Then I full clear Normal and do as much as I can on Hard until I run out of health packs.

SnowcaTT

I mentioned somewhere probably four nodes back that I came in, ran one hard node one time, and was T100. Later I fell to about 400. It was an essential -more points, others might have done more of other nodes, but it was the easiest one for me. It was a daytime (US) section, should have seen heavier play.

That meant 3/5ths of the people likely did one or less nodes of hard mode - the crazy scaling has essentially locked out a large part of their playerbase.

Then again, I woke up and ran all the easy nodes once and I'm in T200 with another hour remaining. I didn't think I'd get T150 in this event but I've moved into that range - I think a lot of people have just stopped playing this event. I don't know if it's between-season off time or perhaps many have seen how many points they are getting and have assumed they won't get top progression, so they gave up.

squirrel1120

Chungachangas wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The Hulk hard nodes are much harder than their level would indicate due to the rather unfair combination of AP pump and since the sub reward is not so great it's not necessarily worthwhile to risk getting wiped out

This
Crickey! at 90 days in I have never been able to get Ragnarok but his / juggling that wipes my team is glorious to behold.
Horrible, locked-out, cascade-of-pain, jaw-dropping action.
I wish I could get him in my roster

Its just not going to be the same without a goon feeding you AP. I've tried him in under leveled nodes, since I never really sank iso into him, and the experience is just not remotely the same. I would probably skip putting any resources into him. If you check viewtopic.php?f=14&t=21083 you'll find him ranked only marginally better than the very worst 3*'s there are.

I have been doing full clears of the hard subs, until the newest one with Rags +2 green ap feeders. I just haven't beaten it yet despite 5-6 tries. Otherwise, its been pretty smooth sailing. The only real benefit to my transition into 3*'s taking forever is that I have a decent number of them to put into different combos, and having 4/4/5 patch as the corner stone of my 3* roster is helping in very many of the cases. Generally, unless they have some big strike tiles getting put out, have constant power spam going (like the example in the first sentence) or somehow the AI unloads ALL its powers in a turn or two, patch has been able to handle it for me. Buffed OBW really helps too. With patch tanking for punisher on green/red, and OBW's AP steal and fake heals, its been enough to sustain through even the harder nodes. The only notable exception was skipping 2 clears in the hard sub so as to try to finish T25 in the Avenger's pvp, although that was a failure. Still finished T10 in the hard sub that go-around, so it didn't sting too bad...

Unknown

Some people are, but I don't think many are. I'm in slice 1, the current subs are the only ones for the entire run of the event I"ll be able to play anywhere close to optimally; I'm generally clearing all of the easy nodes one, and just the essentials after that (sometimes a few more); for hard, I'm usually doing most of the nodes once (usually not all) and generally only hitting essentials after that. I'm putting in a little extra effort maybe at the end, because I've gotten top 50 in every sub (not that it's taking much extra effort, or paid off at all for that matter), and I'm overall about #16.

People are doing the bare minimum for top 150, except for a handful of people pushing for top 2.

rixmith

I was playing them as hard as normal until I got to the 42K progression reward (ranked about #40 in my bracket at that time). I don't need the Doom black or blue covers, so I can take it much easier this weekend and save my health packs to use on the PvP. I'll certainly farm ISO from the normal sub, and do a few nodes in the hard sub, but I won't put my whole team in the hospital just to take a cover away from someone that really wants/needs it.

Unknown

As previously said :

- I played the PvE "normally" till I reached the 42K progression reward,
- played the normal subs as much as I could, but with the LRs and PvP it was hard to do everything,
- as for the hard nodes, I clear them once per 12h now. They use too much health packs now. Not worth it.

Overall, I could stay in the Top 25 playing this way, which means people are not playing much, but I don't myself.

I used to enjoy grinding the node rewards, but I'm sick of grinding 20 Iso when sometimes I need to full boost, including HP for the rainbow.

Instead of spending so much time creating tons of new characters, they should fix PvE so it becomes fun and rewarding.

D3 : will you wait till people definitely stop playing PvE to realize it's hard time you listened to us ?

Unknown

Funny that you asked it, today is the first day I couldn't manage to clear all nods in the hard sub-braket. Missed 2 nods actually. And I tried.

Unknown

Actually, I think scaling is going pretty well in this one. The normal sub has been continually beatable and I can use more team comps for fun in it. The hard sub is scaling to a point where players can't grind, and some that have will be limited in which nodes they can beat. This is how scaling should be. Players should not be able to infinitely grind subs, otherwise why have scaling at all.

They only issue they may still need to address is starting scaling level that start out with levels too high.