Nerf the boosts in PvP only, PLEASE

Unknown

Its pretty simple, balance and fairness when battleing a players defense team equals good. Taking away our ability to survive against the computer (save the seemingly rare player cascade) so to lower our PVE scores and lower our already slim chances of completing DDQ (I don't care if you beat it everytime with ease, not everyone is you. Keep those "helpful" responses to your bad **** self) equals so very bad.

Speaking for myself as a 2-3 transition player, you just turrned a great deal of feeder battles (family reunion VII) and survival nodes (DDQ 4 Wave) into a slot pulls. Completion was never guaranteed for me to begin with and 1 enemy cascade usually wiped me out. Now I have to pray for a amazing board or it's basically over before it starts and I don't believe in Gods so I'm truly boned here.....

SnowcaTT

Even better, simply yank down the scaling from 11 to something a bit reasonable.

Unknown

Indeed O'neal

wirius

Pve is also competitive, and I don't think they want battles to be decided by boosts. If you can't beat those nodes, then your scaling will drop until the point that you can. Everyone is in the same boat, so people across the board will now have to decide whether certain nodes are worth trying anymore. If everyone always wins, the only competition is who grinds the most. A little risk, a little randomness and tactics goes a long way to making the game more engaging then what a bot could do.

Unknown

wirius wrote:

Pve is also competitive, and I don't think they want battles to be decided by boosts. If you can't beat those nodes, then your scaling will drop until the point that you can. Everyone is in the same boat, so people across the board will now have to decide whether certain nodes are worth trying anymore. If everyone always wins, the only competition is who grinds the most. A little risk, a little randomness and tactics goes a long way to making the game more engaging then what a bot could do.

That's what we do here to win is grind. It's not like that changes because we have one less AP to start with. Also, we are no more/less balanced now either and there was always risk, randomness and tactics associated with this game so I'm not sure what you are saying. No disrespect meant friend.

PvP is where this change belongs because it's not fair for players to always be handicapped so bad when defending against other players. Isn't it bad enough that the computer plays your best team with the skill and ability of a particularly stupid, pre packaged grape jelly you get from Waffle House?

simonsez

3

wirius wrote:

Pve is also competitive, and I don't think they want battles to be decided by boosts. If you can't beat those nodes, then your scaling will drop until the point that you can. Everyone is in the same boat, so people across the board will now have to decide whether certain nodes are worth trying anymore. If everyone always wins, the only competition is who grinds the most. A little risk, a little randomness and tactics goes a long way to making the game more engaging then what a bot could do.

I don't want to lose covers because of "randomness". But this is basically where we are now. Bad initial boards and unlucky cascades are now way more devastating.

But whatever, if the devs decide that +4 boosts should be the limit, what can we do? But what I can't stand is them basically saying, "And if you've used +3 in the past, you can continue doing so, as long as you pay for it"

orbitalint

simonsez wrote:

I don't want to lose covers because of "randomness". But this is basically where we are now. Bad initial boards and unlucky cascades are now way more devastating.

I think it is a long leap to go from a single clear of a node to randomness of winning the covers you want in a 7 day event. Maybe on the old school 2.5 hour refresh timers it would be chalked up to randomness but if you fail a node with your A team, you have healthpacks every 3 hours to try again and you are still on an "optimal" clear schedule.

Does it suck that it is now not quite in sync with the rest of the nodes? Sure, but it doesn't seem like anything more than an inconvenience than somehow putting covers in jeopardy over the long haul. Over the course of an event, I highly doubt those at the top are somehow getting statistically better boards over the course of 300+ node clears during an event. They are putting in the time, which doesn't seem random to me.

Will it increase loss % with 1 less boost? Yes. Will it keep scaling low-ER than with all boosts? Uncertain but likely yes. These changes obviously don't help the individual player but I'm also ok with the idea that you don't have to use boosts as much anymore to keep up with everyone else using boosts to clear un-Godly nodes, which in turn, drove up community scaling more. Less boosts in the system, my guess is less scaling overall.

wirius

BBTBob wrote:

wirius wrote:

Pve is also competitive, and I don't think they want battles to be decided by boosts. If you can't beat those nodes, then your scaling will drop until the point that you can. Everyone is in the same boat, so people across the board will now have to decide whether certain nodes are worth trying anymore. If everyone always wins, the only competition is who grinds the most. A little risk, a little randomness and tactics goes a long way to making the game more engaging then what a bot could do.

That's what we do here to win is grind. It's not like that changes because we have one less AP to start with. Also, we are no more/less balanced now either and there was always risk, randomness and tactics associated with this game so I'm not sure what you are saying. No disrespect meant friend.

PvP is where this change belongs because it's not fair for players to always be handicapped so bad when defending against other players. Isn't it bad enough that the computer plays your best team with the skill and ability of a particularly stupid, pre packaged grape jelly you get from Waffle House?

No disrespect taken. Just an opinion. I suppose I'm biased because I hardly use boosts. It always feels like cheating, and I personally don't like them at all. Doesn't mean I'm right.

simonsez

orbitalint wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I think it is a long leap to go from a single clear of a node to randomness of winning the covers you want in a 7 day event.

If I'm in my final grind, and I totally wipe on one node, my options are going to be to either sacrifice a few thousand points, or buy some healthpacks. And it's not as if this will be a one-time occurrence. The potential is there at every single final grind. So where exactly is the long leap?

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

orbitalint wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I think it is a long leap to go from a single clear of a node to randomness of winning the covers you want in a 7 day event.

If I'm in my final grind, and I totally wipe on one node, my options are going to be to either sacrifice a few thousand points, or buy some healthpacks. And it's not as if this will be a one-time occurrence. The potential is there at every single final grind. So where exactly is the long leap?

I'm pretty sure at least half of my overall margin of victory in the last Prodigal Sun came from the HT + 2 Pyro node and it was a calculated risk to do that insane node figuring that I can match my opponent in all the other likely nodes we'd hit so this one is likely to make the difference. I started doing that node 8 hours before the event ended to give myself enough time for about 1.5 wipes (and had at least one wipe) without affecting my overall clear. Now what if I didn't have that much time? Then it depends on how much of a gambling man you are because without that node it's going to be a straight up grind to the finish.

At any rate, as long as there are still 6 stacks on every mission it's not really a matter of luck. It might be luck to beat something once versus none, but as long as you've opponents that require you to beat a node 4 times to distance yourself, you're not beating a node like HT + 2 Pyro 4 times on just luck alone unless you're the luckiest man in the world. And if things somehow get so hard that it'll be decided between beating a node once or none, then maybe it'd be a good idea to take some extra time to make sure you really get the one win you need. Currently it is usually not worth the effort to spend extra time studying any particular game because time is still the dominating factor. At any rate, if things do get decided by 'once or none' then it'd be a pretty relaxing pace for everyone involved so it's not like you're risking much in terms of time commitment, which seems to be one of the biggest complaint about PvE.

Stax the Foyer

orbitalint wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I don't want to lose covers because of "randomness". But this is basically where we are now. Bad initial boards and unlucky cascades are now way more devastating.

I think it is a long leap to go from a single clear of a node to randomness of winning the covers you want in a 7 day event. Maybe on the old school 2.5 hour refresh timers it would be chalked up to randomness but if you fail a node with your A team, you have healthpacks every 3 hours to try again and you are still on an "optimal" clear schedule.

Listen, and understand. Those optimal scorers are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't need ISO, PvP rewards, or sleep. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you finish a seven-day event in third place by 10 points.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

At any rate, as long as there are still 6 stacks on every mission it's not really a matter of luck.

I'm glad there are 6 stacks, because it makes it much easier to understand the analogy that it really is a game of russian roulette. At some point, you're going to run into a board that represents the bullet in the chamber. And so is the person you're dueling with. The question becomes, do you take the bullet on your first clear attempt while your opponent takes it on his 5th? Or vice versa? In the short term, and yes, a 7 day event in probabilistic terms, IS "the short term", it absolutely does come down to luck.

TLCstormz

What if they ONLY kept boosts for DDQ?

CHILE SAUCE!!!!! Our something like that. lol

I'd rather them keep it for PvE as well, though.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Phantron wrote:

At any rate, as long as there are still 6 stacks on every mission it's not really a matter of luck.

I'm glad there are 6 stacks, because it makes it much easier to understand the analogy that it really is a game of russian roulette. At some point, you're going to run into a board that represents the bullet in the chamber. And so is the person you're dueling with. The question becomes, do you take the bullet on your first clear attempt while your opponent takes it on his 5th? Or vice versa? In the short term, and yes, a 7 day event in probabilistic terms, IS "the short term", it absolutely does come down to luck.

I'm not going to pretend that beating a node like Mag + Don + IM35 or HT + 2 Pyro is all skill, but I don't think it's all luck either. I'm reasonably confident that I can beat either node at the high end of scaling 3 times taking at most 1 bullet, and sometimes you can take 2 if you started early enough (I started HT + 2 Pyro with 8 hours to go since I fully expected to wipe on that one so I gave myself a lot of extra time). Now after that it probably is a lot of luck, but a tie has to be decided by something and if someone is just that much luckier, I guess it just wasn't meant to be. This assumes you have plenty of time to plan everything ahead of time, as this strategy obviously is not going to work if you can only play with say 3 hours left, as taking even one bullet here will likely immediately end any aspiration of placing well. I don't know if there's a solution to that, which is why I start working on those super insane nodes with 8 hours left instead of 3.

orbitalint

simonsez wrote:

orbitalint wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I think it is a long leap to go from a single clear of a node to randomness of winning the covers you want in a 7 day event.

If I'm in my final grind, and I totally wipe on one node, my options are going to be to either sacrifice a few thousand points, or buy some healthpacks. And it's not as if this will be a one-time occurrence. The potential is there at every single final grind. So where exactly is the long leap?

I'm only speaking for myself but one wipe on one node in a final grind is a set back but doesn't mean a whole lot if you have a sufficiently deep roster, have been playing optimally the whole time and save the worst nodes for last. Only 2-3 nodes a sub are community scaled and essentials don't usually scale too bad. So, assuming you clear all the easy nodes and essentials first on the final grind relatively unscathed by using Daken/Patch, team rotations or whatever so you conserve healthpacks, that leaves let's say 3-4 health packs and your A team to tackle the worst nodes.

So, let's assume you've gotten all your points from the easy nodes and you get through the hardest nodes once or twice before you are put in that position of a full wipe and having to make that decision. That's A) leaving much fewer than "a few thousand points" on the table depending on the sub since you mitigated the risk of a full wipe to just a few nodes since everything else is clear, and everyone is taking a higher percentage of losses on those nodes too. Rarely have I seen anyone in even the most hardcore of brackets grind nodes to 1 every sub. After a few subs, chance matters less and roster depth and skill start to play a larger factor because you aren't going to get a terrible board each and every final grind on the hardest nodes.

So yes, you are right about randomness playing a factor in the first few subs but on average, a multi-day PVE is going to have some subs where you'll clear more hard nodes than you should on your last grind and some less. But at a certain point, you should have a sufficient lead by playing optimally on whoever you are being chased for top 5, 10, 50 whatever, that you just need to play about as good as him on those worst nodes and par for the the course. If that's 2x on the hardest nodes or 4x, whatever.

Also, I've only ever used HP to buy health packs for a PVE once. PX release in a super competitive bracket on the last grind.

orbitalint

Also, what Phan said about starting an impossible node that no one can grind to 1 in one sitting at the 8h mark. Mitigates that chance of terribleness even more.

Arondite

Why do you need boosts for DPDQ? If you're in a position to be clearing the whole thing, you should have a well-developed 2 Star roster. A 2 Star Roster with the actual shining characters can easily clear every node in DPDQ.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

I'm not going to pretend that beating a node like Mag + Don + IM35 or HT + 2 Pyro is all skill, but I don't think it's all luck either.

I'm very happy to say that we can agree on this.

simonsez

orbitalint wrote:

I'm only speaking for myself but one wipe on one node in a final grind is a set back but doesn't mean a whole lot if you have a sufficiently deep roster

I'll admit that I'm far from the most imaginative player, but when it comes to b.s. feeder nodes, I need to shut it down asap or die. I don't see a whole lot of options that let me do that... and thanks to GT getting kneecapped, there goes the best option. So I don't see how depth is going to help me when most of my roster would have no chance of surviving.

orbitalint

simonsez wrote:

orbitalint wrote:

I'm only speaking for myself but one wipe on one node in a final grind is a set back but doesn't mean a whole lot if you have a sufficiently deep roster

I'll admit that I'm far from the most imaginative player, but when it comes to b.s. feeder nodes, I need to shut it down asap or die. I don't see a whole lot of options that let me do that... and thanks to GT getting kneecapped, there goes the best option. So I don't see how depth is going to help me when most of my roster would have no chance of surviving.

Yeah, I can understand. I really just meant that others on your roster could handle the rest of the clears, even if they did so in a somewhat slower fashion.

Leaving my healthpacks, XF, Cap, Hood for Mags/IM. Stalled enough with hood to get either blue, green or black to take down/stun mags. IM and Don were cake after that. Honestly, XF/Hood/Cap usually make up my "goon feeder **** squad." Gives you more options for which color to rush to start so you don't have as many bad boards.

"Sixty percent of the time, it works every time."

orbitalint

Also, Simon, why the downvote above? Just having some discussion. Nothing was meant personally even though we disagree on the loss of boosts and impact on the game. Thought it was ok to express differing opinions on a topic.

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