The Hunt: Jan 21 - 26

JVReal

I have no open subs... Alaska and florida have been gone since last night. Only had savage land, that closed 15 mins ago, and no open subs. Anyone else?

Unknown

Switchman wrote:

LOL @ anyone complaining about Low Level Rosters having an unfair advantage in PVE. You do realize this is the only game function low level players can actually play, let alone use to actually progress?

Low level players cannot do PVP. Cannot do LR. Their only hope is to play every 3 hours + grinding end of subs + waking up at stupid hours to grind even more. You think that is fun? You think it's fun when you can't even build a 3*? You think it's fun winning f'ing Squirrel Girl when you really need Ldaken, BP, Patch, etc?

Then, if they do end up winning the PVE...they (recently) get a new char they can't even max out. If they do have the ISO & covers to max, they still can't because then they will scale themselves out of PVE...THE ONLY THING THEY CAN PLAY.

Don't get mad at Alliances comprised of low lvl players winning PVE when it's the Game and the Devs that continue to ignore the real issues while releasing new chars.

Thank god I read Polarity's noob guy from day 1 and didn't scale myself out of this game from the get go. Having a low level 4thor is awesome in PVE.

I do find it funny how people constantly complain about other players(particularly low level ones) don't deserve PVE rewards, when in PVP I can't even get top 100(consistantly) or past 600 points.

Maybe these elitist players should be playing PVP instead

JVReal

JVReal wrote:

I have no open subs... Alaska and florida have been gone since last night. Only had savage land, that closed 15 mins ago, and no open subs. Anyone else?

Apparently i didnt notice i have to repeat nodes in the main to open them again. Problem solved.

over_clocked

Have no idea why others mention weaker players not getting scaled out. Maybe they aren't but stronger rosters see no issue whatsoever either. If you lack speed, invest into 4or covers
I will likely have to moderate myself not to get top10 and deny someone the yellow LT cover by accident while grinding subs for Iso and tokens. Absolutely love 8 hour refreshes so far.

Unknown

Low level rosters have an advantage? I have 7 2*'s maxed and no usable 3*'s at all. 38 roster slots.

On my first clear in Florida I'm seeing this.

Jump Jet - 184/184/184
Jump Jet 2 - 168/169/168

Also the top 20 of my bracket...16 of them have at least one fully covered 3*.

Unknown

Mau-- wrote:

Low level rosters have an advantage? I have 7 2*'s maxed and no usable 3*'s at all. 38 roster slots.

On my first clear in Florida I'm seeing this.

Jump Jet - 184/184/184
Jump Jet 2 - 168/169/168

Also the top 20 of my bracket...16 of them have at least one fully covered 3*.

The only actual major non-troll, non-"WAHHH 2*PLAYERS SHOULDNT BEAT ME" answer I can think of for 2*players having an advantage is:

Having the MagStorm combo - as has been discussed, there's not really a combo as dominant as that in 3*/4* land. But then again, MagStique exists now.


---

Also, I forgot to chime in on how I like 8 hour refreshes: I'm top 150 after 3 days into the event, with the final progression reward so I'm extremely happy.

squirrel1120

Yes you have an advantage. I'm still using teams like Mags n storm to beat the same nodes at times, simply cause they get the job done, yet my nodes are about 210. See the advantage there?

Our sister alliance has a player still in the 1* transition who absolutely cleans up in pve with #1 placement in every event. Unfortunately he loves to brag, and no one's had the heart to tell him he isn't playing the same game yet. He's got the advantage though since he knows enough to level his characters together even though he's still learning basic game mechanics.

On a previous topic this might actually be the best event to test 8hr refresh since it's kinda the worst case scenario. If it work ok here, it'd probably be good in pretty much any event.

That being said, I dislike it. 8 hr is just too long. How about a 4.5 or 5 hr so a double clear can get you a good night's rest or a workda? I thought I'd like 8 hr, but realistically it's just really awkward. If I work then I'm clearing once after dinner, and then one more time with only half a timer expired. I might get a few nodes in the morning if im lucky. When that's my play time range, it was only good for about #200, where the same effort would net me T50 under 3hr. Of course it also has something to do with the amount of timer required to clear all the nodes in this event, not to mention trying to play pvp also.

Unknown

squirrel1120 wrote:

Yes you have an advantage. I'm still using teams like Mags n storm to beat the same nodes at times, simply cause they get the job done, yet my nodes are about 210. See the advantage there?

Our sister alliance has a player still in the 1* transition who absolutely cleans up in pve with #1 placement in every event. Unfortunately he loves to brag, and no one's had the heart to tell him he isn't playing the same game yet. He's got the advantage though since he knows enough to level his characters together even though he's still learning basic game mechanics.

On a previous topic this might actually be the best event to test 8hr refresh since it's kinda the worst case scenario. If it work ok here, it'd probably be good in pretty much any event.

That being said, I dislike it. 8 hr is just too long. How about a 4.5 or 5 hr so a double clear can get you a good night's rest or a workda? I thought I'd like 8 hr, but realistically it's just really awkward. If I work then I'm clearing once after dinner, and then one more time with only half a timer expired. I might get a few nodes in the morning if im lucky. When that's my play time range, it was only good for about #200, where the same effort would net me T50 under 3hr. Of course it also has something to do with the amount of timer required to clear all the nodes in this event, not to mention trying to play pvp also.

You can compete in PVP. You have "an advantage"

DrNitroman

What? Only one sub (Florida) open!? wh-where are my subs!?

Joke aside, there is some sort of relief seeing only one red (open) node. Alaska has just finished while savage land will only open for a last time in 9h. I'm in Slice 2. Finally I think that 8h refresh was rather a good thing for an event like the Hunt: I wasn't urged to play the 2 open nodes in the same play session but rather spread my grinding in several short sessions during the evening.

Whatever. Alaska is done. definitely done

ZootSax

While I'm certain that scaling favors the lower level rosters early on in a PVE event, once community scaling kicks in, the advantage has to shift back to the higher level folks simply because there's a cap on enemy levels and 3* & 4* teams have a chance in hell of beating a 395 node, unlike the 2* folks. As a point of reference, I encountered my first 300+ level node when my highest level character was only an un-boosted IM35 (I think it was in Simulation: Hard, but I honestly don't remember). Nowadays I don't see 395's every single event, but typically they're around in the closing hours every 2-4 events or so, depending on how event scaling goes.

I don't mean to sound whiny, because I honestly think the current game balance for scaling seems pretty workable (the top ten of my Hunt PVE, for instance, has 3 teams with maxed 2*'s, 4 with level 115-140 3*'s and 3 with maxed 3*'s, which is about as ideal as you could hope for in a game like this). I'm just tired of hearing some 3* folks who seem to think that every PVE is no more difficult than the prologue missions for those of us in 2* Land, which is simply untrue.

That said, it's time to blow through my health packs in Florida to see if I can hang onto a LThor cover

Unknown

ZootSax wrote:

While I'm certain that scaling favors the lower level rosters early on in a PVE event, once community scaling kicks in, the advantage has to shift back to the higher level folks simply because there's a cap on enemy levels and 3* & 4* teams have a chance in hell of beating a 395 node, unlike the 2* folks. As a point of reference, I encountered my first 300+ level node when my highest level character was only an un-boosted IM35 (I think it was in Simulation: Hard, but I honestly don't remember). Nowadays I don't see 395's every single event, but typically they're around in the closing hours every 2-4 events or so, depending on how event scaling goes.

I don't mean to sound whiny, because I honestly think the current game balance for scaling seems pretty workable (the top ten of my Hunt PVE, for instance, has 3 teams with maxed 2*'s, 4 with level 115-140 3*'s and 3 with maxed 3*'s, which is about as ideal as you could hope for in a game like this). I'm just tired of hearing some 3* folks who seem to think that every PVE is no more difficult than the prologue missions for those of us in 2* Land, which is simply untrue.

That said, it's time to blow through my health packs in Florida to see if I can hang onto a LThor cover

This event is not getting anywhere close to 395. I haven't even seen anything approaching 300.

I don't know why people have this weird idea that it's supposed to be fair in PvE, not that it's even fair because it's actually easier if your characters are at a certain level that isn't the max. If having a stronger roster doesn't offer you an advantage why even improve your roster? What is the motivation to keep playing knowing that you'll end up relatively worse as your characters get stronger? To dominate in PvP? PvP is pretty much just P2W after a certain point and you technically need a considerably weaker roster to do well in PvP because you only need 2 guys instead of 3 due to format. While your best 3 guy does at least 90% of the work, occasionally there's a reason to use someone use but your best guys so the requirement on roster is much heavier than PvP where your 2 best guy do 100% of the work after a certain point since that's constrained by format.

Of course I know they don't like it back when PvE was actually fair and people with strongest rosters just win stuff without even really trying, but if they're really worried about that stuff they can rein in PvP first because it takes even less effort there to win things you don't need for the strongest rosters.

squirrel1120

ZootSax wrote:

While I'm certain that scaling favors the lower level rosters early on in a PVE event, once community scaling kicks in, the advantage has to shift back to the higher level folks simply because there's a cap on enemy levels and 3* & 4* teams have a chance in hell of beating a 395 node, unlike the 2* folks. As a point of reference, I encountered my first 300+ level node when my highest level character was only an un-boosted IM35 (I think it was in Simulation: Hard, but I honestly don't remember). Nowadays I don't see 395's every single event, but typically they're around in the closing hours every 2-4 events or so, depending on how event scaling goes.

I don't mean to sound whiny, because I honestly think the current game balance for scaling seems pretty workable (the top ten of my Hunt PVE, for instance, has 3 teams with maxed 2*'s, 4 with level 115-140 3*'s and 3 with maxed 3*'s, which is about as ideal as you could hope for in a game like this). I'm just tired of hearing some 3* folks who seem to think that every PVE is no more difficult than the prologue missions for those of us in 2* Land, which is simply untrue.

That said, it's time to blow through my health packs in Florida to see if I can hang onto a LThor cover

I disagree, and I do so on the point that I was just a 2* player struggling in the transition myself until just recently. The last time I played the hunt, I did pretty well. I had a 2* roster with a couple 120's that barely saw use. The buffed 2's were well better than the 3's they buffed for me.

If I use my current max'd 3's in the hardest nodes right now, namely lcap and patch, I will wipe gaurunteed. (Unless it's a goon node, lcap shines there) I still have to use the 2*'s, except the margin for error is a lot less. Magnestorm doesn't have even 1 more hit point simply because I finally maxed a pair of 3's

We are strictly talking about advantage a lower roster has in pve. Pvp has nothing to do with winning a pve. I'm personally not complaining, I'm just saying that as someone who was there recently, it was definitely easier. I'll still take what I have over what I had before just for the sheer fact of not having to lose 150 pts per hr to other 2* teams in pvp.

Being able to compete in pvp is the only reason I maxed toons, but that's kind of a joke too because with shielding changes you aren't placing well without a shield without 4*'s. I forgot to shield at lunch the other day and my 600 score was <400 when I got home. I had 45 min to play and barely made it to 600 again only to be hit 3x during a match I finished just too late for it to count. Playing through the better part of the last hour my max 3* team only placed 130th. Placing T25 doesn't happen without spending 450hp on shields. It's another case of, 'just when I get there, the bar gets raised again'.

Unknown

I think I saw locked in my bracket a while back. She's the only forumite I've recognized so far. Hovering at 42 but it's tight so I keep alternating between 40-55, depending on how much I grind. Definitely loving the 8 hour refresh.

Unknown

One positive thing about the 8 hour refresh is I can try some nodes I wouldn't normally touch with a ten foot pole. When you know you don't have to re tackle nodes for another 3 hours it doesn't matter if you wipe against a hard or deadly node since you'll regen health and health packs in that time. I've beaten a couple of nodes I wouldn't even have tried in other events knowing even if I won my health would be wiped out for the refreshed beatable nodes. Feels kind of nice getting points from a node I should have no chance in he'll of beating.

Unknown

The way this game does fairness in PvE would be like if I'm racing Usain Bolt in a 100m race but he's chained to two heavy rocks and running against a moving walkway while I'm on a moving walkway that's moving in a beneficial direction for me, and just because sometimes Usain Bolt still beats me anyway doesn't mean it's fair or that this matchup even makes sense. Of course to counterbalance the fact that Usain Bolt may occasionally lose to me under this ridiculous setup we also have PvP where it's relatively everything-goes where I can see Usain Bolt outrun me while running backwards. D3's idea seems to be that if we screw everyone at a fairly random and equal interval it must be fair, but that really doesn't work. Either the guys with the top rosters should smash everyone in PvP or PvE like they do in many competitive events (e.g. no normal guy will ever compete against a pro athlete in any pro sports and no one has a problem with that), or they need to divide people into leagues so that people with vastly different abilities don't play each other. You can't just say well this guy's roster is 5 times stronger and he's 20% more skilled than the average 2* so we give him enemies 6 times stronger because that's totally fair.

For a long time PvE was also dominated by the maxed out guys and that's perfectly fine by me, and if D3 doesn't like that, they should make sure people with maxed out rosters don't play guys who have no possible chance of competing against them. Of course then they'd also have to change the reward structure but that's a given. The prizes for winning should not be equal when the underyling abilities of the players are vastly different. If winning your local rec center basketball event is as rewarding as the NBA Playoffs, then you wouldn't be very surprised to see a bunch of NBA guys show up in your local rec center and totally owning everyone. Of course since this isn't true, NBA players usually have better things to do than owning everyone at the local rec center even though they obviously can do that, but D3 doesn't have this concept at all. You get just as much for winning in a bracket consisting of the local rec center guys compared to the NBA bracket of death.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The way this game does fairness in PvE would be like if I'm racing Usain Bolt in a 100m race but he's chained to two heavy rocks and running against a moving walkway while I'm on a moving walkway that's moving in a beneficial direction for me, and just because sometimes Usain Bolt still beats me anyway doesn't mean it's fair or that this matchup even makes sense. Of course to counterbalance the fact that Usain Bolt may occasionally lose to me under this ridiculous setup we also have PvP where it's relatively everything-goes where I can see Usain Bolt outrun me while running backwards. D3's idea seems to be that if we screw everyone at a fairly random and equal interval it must be fair, but that really doesn't work. Either the guys with the top rosters should smash everyone in PvP or PvE like they do in many competitive events (e.g. no normal guy will ever compete against a pro athlete in any pro sports and no one has a problem with that), or they need to divide people into leagues so that people with vastly different abilities don't play each other. You can't just say well this guy's roster is 5 times stronger and he's 20% more skilled than the average 2* so we give him enemies 6 times stronger because that's totally fair.

For a long time PvE was also dominated by the maxed out guys and that's perfectly fine by me, and if D3 doesn't like that, they should make sure people with maxed out rosters don't play guys who have no possible chance of competing against them. Of course then they'd also have to change the reward structure but that's a given. The prizes for winning should not be equal when the underyling abilities of the players are vastly different. If winning your local rec center basketball event is as rewarding as the NBA Playoffs, then you wouldn't be very surprised to see a bunch of NBA guys show up in your local rec center and totally owning everyone. Of course since this isn't true, NBA players usually have better things to do than owning everyone at the local rec center even though they obviously can do that, but D3 doesn't have this concept at all. You get just as much for winning in a bracket consisting of the local rec center guys compared to the NBA bracket of death.

I think this is the core of what frustrates me - I have to compete against people wayyyyy out of my league because we all want the (relatively) same thing. Even if MPQMaster6000 with a completely maxed roster doesn't need 1st place covers, chances are they want HP, ISO, and season score if applicable.

I wish there were some way I could get the stuff I needed and the Super Saiyan 5 Mega-Evolved Terminator-Alien Hybrids could fight among themselves.

fmftint

Phantron wrote:

The way this game does fairness in PvE would be like if I'm racing Usain Bolt in a 100m race but he's chained to two heavy rocks and running against a moving walkway while I'm on a moving walkway that's moving in a beneficial direction for me, and just because sometimes Usain Bolt still beats me anyway doesn't mean it's fair or that this matchup even makes sense. Of course to counterbalance the fact that Usain Bolt may occasionally lose to me under this ridiculous setup we also have PvP where it's relatively everything-goes where I can see Usain Bolt outrun me while running backwards. D3's idea seems to be that if we screw everyone at a fairly random and equal interval it must be fair, but that really doesn't work. Either the guys with the top rosters should smash everyone in PvP or PvE like they do in many competitive events (e.g. no normal guy will ever compete against a pro athlete in any pro sports and no one has a problem with that), or they need to divide people into leagues so that people with vastly different abilities don't play each other. You can't just say well this guy's roster is 5 times stronger and he's 20% more skilled than the average 2* so we give him enemies 6 times stronger because that's totally fair.

For a long time PvE was also dominated by the maxed out guys and that's perfectly fine by me, and if D3 doesn't like that, they should make sure people with maxed out rosters don't play guys who have no possible chance of competing against them. Of course then they'd also have to change the reward structure but that's a given. The prizes for winning should not be equal when the underyling abilities of the players are vastly different. If winning your local rec center basketball event is as rewarding as the NBA Playoffs, then you wouldn't be very surprised to see a bunch of NBA guys show up in your local rec center and totally owning everyone. Of course since this isn't true, NBA players usually have better things to do than owning everyone at the local rec center even though they obviously can do that, but D3 doesn't have this concept at all. You get just as much for winning in a bracket consisting of the local rec center guys compared to the NBA bracket of death.

You forget what D3 considers FUN! Choosing to excel in PVP or PVE is FUN! Quite on the same level that choosing which heroes you keep and which you trash is FUN!

Unknown

As someone who is on day 66 of mpq I dont know "how things used to be." However it seems to me that the developers are trying to keep a natural progression to the game. I beat the game levels, got a couple 2* characters and decided to see what the events were about. If I couldn't compete at that level I wouldn't have continued playing. Probably the same for all of us at some point (think way back). Scaling is necessary to keep new players engaged. How fair it is is another matter dependent on the developers. My top ten always has stronger rosters than me at this point but I've never felt I can't compete against them if I put in the effort and I normally place high enough to get a couple featured covers (currently in 3rd thank you very much. I've never played pvp but I always assumed it's what higher level players graduated to when they began to max out their rosters. Some day hopefully I'll have a strong enough roster to be complaining about those weak transition players beating me in events due to scaling but I'll also try to remember how I got my roster in the first place. Aside: 2* level 72 Thor is my strongest character at this point.

Vhailorx

Quick question about a Slice 4 bracket.

Attention: Kiddicarus of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Ronald EM of Neko House; and UGA Bulldog of Quack Fu

All of you are currently in the top 10 of your Slice 4 bracket in the Hunt. All of you already have 5 3* Thor yellow covers. And you all also probably out of contention for a top 2 finish, being at least 9000 points behind 2nd (and two of you already have 5 4* Thor red covers anyway). Consequently, the only value of a top 10 finish to you, as opposed to a top 20 finish, is a about 1000 iso. Do you intend to grind out the event for top 10?

I'm looking for my first 3* Thor yellow cover and would really enjoy not having to grind like mad to hold my top 10 position. So I thought I would ask and see what your intentions are.

Unknown

dtrpath3 wrote:

As someone who is on day 66 of mpq I dont know "how things used to be." However it seems to me that the developers are trying to keep a natural progression to the game. I beat the game levels, got a couple 2* characters and decided to see what the events were about. If I couldn't compete at that level I wouldn't have continued playing. Probably the same for all of us at some point (think way back). Scaling is necessary to keep new players engaged. How fair it is is another matter dependent on the developers. My top ten always has stronger rosters than me at this point but I've never felt I can't compete against them if I put in the effort and I normally place high enough to get a couple featured covers (currently in 3rd thank you very much. I've never played pvp but I always assumed it's what higher level players graduated to when they began to max out their rosters. Some day hopefully I'll have a strong enough roster to be complaining about those weak transition players beating me in events due to scaling but I'll also try to remember how I got my roster in the first place. Aside: 2* level 72 Thor is my strongest character at this point.

When I started playing, the first PvE I experienced was Unstable ISO. I could only do a couple of nodes, but it didn't bother me. I just started, why should I be able to do the entire thing? The more difficult nodes gave me a concrete target to strive for. Maybe if you have zero interest in Marvel you'd drop the game. But it's not unreasonable to be locked out of certain content when you are just a beginner.

In fact, I think the devs dug themselves a deep hole when they introduced scaling. Because there is so little actual new content in this game, by opening up every story node to every player, they were left with only two options to prevent the game from getting stale fast: 1) Consistently produce new story content / game modes, or 2) Slow down roster transition as much as possible. They went with 2), probably because covers and roster slots make up the bulk of their revenue and take less effort to develop than real content.