Thick as Thieves (1 Apr - 8 Apr 2015)

jffdougan

I'm making extensive use of spoiler tags to save space.

End times (all Central Daylight Time, USA):

Slice 1: Wed 8 Apr, 8 AM
Slice 2: Wed 8 Apr, 2 PM
Slice 3: Wed 8 Apr, 5 PM
Slice 4: Wed 8 Apr, 11 PM
Slice 5: Thur 8 Apr, 2 AM

Powered up:

Progression Rewards:

400: Standard Token
700: 100
1000: Rainbow damage boost
1500: 250
2000:
3000:
5000: Rainbow AP boost
10000: 250
15000:
20000: 250
25000:
30000: 250
35000:
40000: 1000
35000: 50
55000: 500
65000: (yay for the RNG making this the accessible cover!)

Placement awards:

1. Awards for 2-5, plus an additional
2-5. , 3000 , 100
6-10. , 3000 , 100
11-50: , 2500 , 50
51-150. , 1500 , 50
151-200. , 1500 , 50
201-300. , 1000 , 25
301-400. , 500
401-500. Standard token x 3, 250
501-600. Standard token x 2, 250
601-800. Standard token, 250
801-1000. 250

Alliance rewards:

1-2. , 5000 , 250
3-10. , 5000 , 100
11-25. , 3000 , 100
26-50. , 2000 , 100
51-100. , 1000 , 50
101-250. 1000 , 50
251-500. 500 , 25
501-1000. 500
1001-10000. 250

Subevent rewards:

1-2. Event token x 2, 1000 , 100
3-10. Event token, 500 , 100
11-50. Event token, 250 , 50
51-100. Event token, 250
101-200. Event token, 200
201-300. event token, 140
301-400. Heroic token, 140
401-500. Standard token x 3, 100
501-600. Standard token x 2, 100
601-800. Standard Token, 100
801-1000. 70

No alliance rewards in the subs.

Summary from mags' PVE format guide:

Episode 3: Thick as Thieves
Length of Event: 6.5 days
Sub-Events? Yes; Alliance Rewards in Sub-Events? No
Number of Sub-Events: 4
Length of Sub-Events: Family Reunion: 36 hours; Anderson, Inc.: 48 hours; Scotland Yard: 48 hours; The Meeting: 24 hours
Main Nodes after Sub-Events End? No
Unique Reward(s): None
Other Notes:

• There is one repeatable node in main that is open throughout the event and gives points.

Updated after Demiurge_Will's announcement that top 100 alliances would get the reward cover.

SnowcaTT

Just in case the Devs skip "general" and pop in here - this event is just the worst. No one wants T50 reward structure. No one wants 7 day events. No one wants new character releases over holiday weekends. No one wants back-to-back character releases. No one wants two 4*'s released in three weeks.

Releases of characters have been speeding up, and now every week? 4*'s were speeding up, and now every other week? This can't bode well for the longevity of this game.

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

Just in case the Devs skip "general" and pop in here - this event is just the worst. No one wants T50 reward structure. No one wants 7 day events. No one wants new character releases over holiday weekends. No one wants back-to-back character releases. No one wants two 4*'s released in three weeks.

Releases of characters have been speeding up, and now every week? 4*'s were speeding up, and now every other week? This can't bode well for the longevity of this game.

As a 2*-3* transitioner, I kind of hate how many new characters are coming out as I don't have as much opportunity to get 3-4 covers to build on a character I already have. I kind of try to brush it off by thinking its a way to keep vets happy with full rosters, and they gave transitioners DDQ to compensate.

Unknown

I want to ask everyones advice on this event. I want to get Ms. Marvels green move but it seems like it;s going to be hard to acquire all the points to hit 65000 in 6 days. (my nodes are giving me about 300 to 150) Would it b best to grind them down to zero as often as possible? or should I play them all twice and wait during the night for the point rest and repeat? Thanks for your advice everyone.

ZootSax

roguecody wrote:

I want to ask everyones advice on this event. I want to get Ms. Marvels green move but it seems like it;s going to be hard to acquire all the points to hit 65000 in 6 days. (my nodes are giving me about 300 to 150) Would it b best to grind them down to zero as often as possible? or should I play them all twice and wait during the night for the point rest and repeat? Thanks for your advice everyone.

Conventional wisdom is that the way to maximize points is to wait the full 8 hours for the node to refresh before playing again, but grind them down to 1 just before the end of the subevent. In many events, the points increase for later subs as well as later in an individual sub, so if you play anywhere close to what is considered optimally, you should comfortably get the maximum progression award--the top players (at least in my brackets) typically get 3-7x the points needed for the maximum progression award, depending on the event length.

That being said, if sleep/work/school/other-commitment will keep you from playing optimally, you're always better off grinding the node to 1 at the last time you are able to play a subevent.

Good luck.

Unknown

ZootSax wrote:

roguecody wrote:

I want to ask everyones advice on this event. I want to get Ms. Marvels green move but it seems like it;s going to be hard to acquire all the points to hit 65000 in 6 days. (my nodes are giving me about 300 to 150) Would it b best to grind them down to zero as often as possible? or should I play them all twice and wait during the night for the point rest and repeat? Thanks for your advice everyone.

Conventional wisdom is that the way to maximize points is to wait the full 8 hours for the node to refresh before playing again, but grind them down to 1 just before the end of the subevent. In many events, the points increase for later subs as well as later in an individual sub, so if you play anywhere close to what is considered optimally, you should comfortably get the maximum progression award--the top players (at least in my brackets) typically get 3-7x the points needed for the maximum progression award, depending on the event length.

That being said, if sleep/work/school/other-commitment will keep you from playing optimally, you're always better off grinding the node to 1 at the last time you are able to play a subevent.

Good luck.

Really helpful. Thank you so much. Guess it requires planning to maximize your point gain. With Kamalas PvP event probably happening Friday it's going to be a very busy week for myself I imagine.

dkffiv

Mavrek32 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Just in case the Devs skip "general" and pop in here - this event is just the worst. No one wants T50 reward structure. No one wants 7 day events. No one wants new character releases over holiday weekends. No one wants back-to-back character releases. No one wants two 4*'s released in three weeks.

Releases of characters have been speeding up, and now every week? 4*'s were speeding up, and now every other week? This can't bode well for the longevity of this game.

As a 2*-3* transitioner, I kind of hate how many new characters are coming out as I don't have as much opportunity to get 3-4 covers to build on a character I already have. I kind of try to brush it off by thinking its a way to keep vets happy with full rosters, and they gave transitioners DDQ to compensate.

Most vets don't want this either. New character = competitive PvE followed by a competitive PvP. We're severely behind on iso (I need 2.5 million to max everything I currently have) and I would rather have an easy PvE with old characters that I don't have to stress about and just enjoy gaining some ISO. Let the players who need the old characters battle it out for tops.

Unknown

roguecody wrote:

I want to ask everyones advice on this event. I want to get Ms. Marvels green move but it seems like it;s going to be hard to acquire all the points to hit 65000 in 6 days. (my nodes are giving me about 300 to 150) Would it b best to grind them down to zero as often as possible? or should I play them all twice and wait during the night for the point rest and repeat? Thanks for your advice everyone.

The points per mission generally increases dramatically for the new events so just because it doesn't look like there's much now is not a reason to despair.

You should never let a mission sit on full points. If you have a choice between doing a mission that's 7 hours from refreshing or leaving it idle for 1 hour after it's maxed, the former is almost always the better (it's only worse if you are planning to grind everything down to 1, but even in that case a 6/2 split would favor doing the mission earlier).

dkffiv

Phantron wrote:

roguecody wrote:

I want to ask everyones advice on this event. I want to get Ms. Marvels green move but it seems like it;s going to be hard to acquire all the points to hit 65000 in 6 days. (my nodes are giving me about 300 to 150) Would it b best to grind them down to zero as often as possible? or should I play them all twice and wait during the night for the point rest and repeat? Thanks for your advice everyone.

The points per mission generally increases dramatically for the new events so just because it doesn't look like there's much now is not a reason to despair.

You should never let a mission sit on full points. If you have a choice between doing a mission that's 7 hours from refreshing or leaving it idle for 1 hour after it's maxed, the former is almost always the better (it's only worse if you are planning to grind everything down to 1, but even in that case a 6/2 split would favor doing the mission earlier).

Doing some quick math leaving a node cooled for an extra hour is worth about 5% more points than doing it 7 hours early in a 16 hour cycle. If the grind down occurs at the end of that 16 hour cycle the difference drops to like 2%, its a little complicated due to the linear drop in points from repeat clears

Quebbster

Here's what rubs me the wrong way a little:
Story-wise, Thick as Thieves comes before ISO-8 Brotherhood. OK, not a big deal since the episodes tend to be a bit jumbled these days (technically The Hulk should have run before either).
But then they run a compressed Brotherhood with 12 hour subs introducing a new character, and follow it up with Thick as Thieves with subs at least 2 days long (haven't checked exactly) also introducing a new character.
If they wanted a 3½ day story PvE followed by a ~7 day story PvE I would definitely have prefered if Thick as Thieves had been the 3½ day PvE (1 day for each sub + 12 hours for the final showdown. It can work.) and Brotherhood had been the 7 day PvE with 24 hour subs.
But I guess if they had done it that way people might have enjoyed it or something...

IReallyHatePVP

Kingpin = badguy/villian => do not want.

Kingpin => super difficult to get covers => seriously do not want.

Kingpin releasd in the Notoriously horrible Thick as Thieves PvE, now incluing post StormNeto NERF = I'll just collect my top prog and move along, thanks.

Sidenote: kudos to devs on the selection, the "rare" power in her release event. I guess the conspiracy thread effectively called out their prior shenanigans.

Unknown

~~If anyone wants to give their Ms. Marvel impressions(loaner, or powered up, or anything really), I'm all ears, please post here or in Ms. Marvel thread~~

OP, update your stars, you're showing 3* as 2*

SnowcaTT wrote:

Just in case the Devs skip "general" and pop in here - this event is just the worst. No one wants T50 reward structure. No one wants 7 day events. No one wants new character releases over holiday weekends. No one wants back-to-back character releases. No one wants two 4*'s released in three weeks.

Releases of characters have been speeding up, and now every week? 4*'s were speeding up, and now every other week? This can't bode well for the longevity of this game.

Considering they're bragging about there being 8,000+ marvel characters, I don't think they give a tinykitty.

Quebbster wrote:

Here's what rubs me the wrong way a little:
Story-wise, Thick as Thieves comes before ISO-8 Brotherhood. OK, not a big deal since the episodes tend to be a bit jumbled these days (technically The Hulk should have run before either).
But then they run a compressed Brotherhood with 12 hour subs introducing a new character, and follow it up with Thick as Thieves with subs at least 2 days long (haven't checked exactly) also introducing a new character.
If they wanted a 3½ day story PvE followed by a ~7 day story PvE I would definitely have prefered if Thick as Thieves had been the 3½ day PvE (1 day for each sub + 12 hours for the final showdown. It can work.) and Brotherhood had been the 7 day PvE with 24 hour subs.
But I guess if they had done it that way people might have enjoyed it or something...

But that would make sense!

~~If anyone wants to give their Ms. Marvel impressions(loaner, or powered up, or anything really), I'm all ears, please post here or in Ms. Marvel thread~~

smoq84

Kamala Kahna was for the first time to win in the previous PvE and just after that she's essential when another new character is introduced? Damn... it is so unfair

Unknown

How many points are available in the subs? I have no interest in grinding this abomination for Kingpin covers, but I would like the Kamala reward. Does it look like I would have to grind hard for 5-6 days, or will 2-3 days be enough?

Quebbster

WolfmanX25 wrote:

How many points are available in the subs? I have no interest in grinding this abomination for Kingpin covers, but I would like the Kamala reward. Does it look like I would have to grind hard for 5-6 days, or will 2-3 days be enough?

Do you have Kamala already? If so, going from previous PvEs, you can probably get the final progression just grinding the final sub.

Unknown

Can't be bothered, PvEs are burning me out. I'm just going for the green Khamala cover.

It's a bad sign when people can't be bothered going for 4* characters anymore.

over_clocked

Please refrain from the competition then (at least for top 10) and let people that actually only need new characters earn them. I am psyched for the iconic villain and am going to hit the event hard. Not asking to be easy on me, lol. Think of yourself and preserve yourself for events of interest.
This is a chance to earn tokens, ISO and HP. Same as it's always been when the main prize seems unachievable. Essentially a week-long break from the grind for many.

darkmagearcanis

Don't get me wrong, I love getting new characters. But back to back is too much. Couldn't they have just given out Beast covers for this event instead so that I could rest for a week. What happened to the every other week character release thing. I will likely go for progression and if in the process I am top 50 I will be happy. Only because KP will be the essential character for the next pve. Which if the next pve releases another new character that is a usable 3* that over shadows 4* again, KP will likely get the boot after the event.

Unknown

If they were going to do back-to-back character releases, there were ways to do it without irritating 90% of the forum:

1. Not run hyper-grindy events. ISO Brotherhood is exhausting - I figured out how much I was doing, and it was something like 55-60 nodes every 12 hours. And that got me top ten, not top 2 or anything. I could have lightened up a little bit, but not much, and gotten all three covers. Thick as Thieves is running for 6.5 days - about as long as events run - and has, with maybe one exception, always had major problems. If one of the events was Marvel vs. MPQ, and the other something shortish and not grindy, we'd be less annoyed by this.

2. Tell us ahead of time. If I had known that the last one was going to be followed by a new character release, especially a new 4* release, I would have taken it a little easier. Maybe settled for top 50. I thought I'd be able to take it easy and recharge in the next PVE. But the Devs don't seem to believe in giving advance warning when something is going to be unpopular, which adds to the annoyance.

3. Open up the 4* reward structure. Would it really be that big a problem for a 10-50-150 reward structure for 4*s? Does an extra 10% of the gaming base getting a SINGLE COVER really upset things that much? The limitation on 4* covers is just stupid. I don't even see how it helps them. Are there people out there still stupid enough to buy cover packs nowadays?

It's not just that they did a bad thing, it's that they did in in the worst manner possible.

darkmagearcanis

Ben Grimm wrote:

2. Tell us ahead of time. If I had known that the last one was going to be followed by a new character release, especially a new 4* release, I would have taken it a little easier. Maybe settled for top 50. I thought I'd be able to take it easy and recharge in the next PVE. But the Devs don't seem to believe in giving advance warning when something is going to be unpopular, which adds to the annoyance.

Technically they did with the whole "Who's Next" ****. They could have at least kept that going for like a week providing multiple clues to who it was going to be before the release. Yet, they decided to just put it up for 24 hours and bam new character.

darkmagearcanis

Does anyone else feel that playing these PVEs is like reading a comic book series backwards and then since you can't find the issue before the one your reading you just jump that issue to the next one back?