Instructions for reducing enemy levels in Thick as Thieves

Kelbris

Apparently this information isn't wide-spread yet (and at this point, people could really use the info with the boost nerf) so I figure I'll help people out. Generally I'd just post this in the main thread, but I want this info to stick out like a sore thumb, since it has the possibility of helping out hundreds of people. YA COULDA LEFT ME MY BOOSTS, DEVS

Want to lower the levels of the enemies in the PvE? You can do it in about 5-10 minutes.

1. Go find a fight with some high-level Maggia Muscles. Three's great, but two will usually work. MAKE SURE THERE ISN'T A REQUIRED OR GIFTED COVER. You want to be able to choose all 3 heroes. Also, it's best if there aren't any villains on the other team. You want all mooks so that you have full control of tile movement. It makes this go a lot quicker.

2. Put your heroes that you won't be using for a while into the fight. One star covers will work best because they get back into the fight quicker.

3. Let them die. DON'T RETREAT. JUST DIE. SERIOUSLY. DIE. Match as many EV tiles as possible. Don't disrupt the countdowns; you want as many Threatens to go off as possible so that when the Muscle gets off a Tommy Gun, he's very likely to one-hit your entire team.

Each loss should lower the levels by about 15-20. If you're going to take an hour or so break, throw EVERYONE at the muscles except for people like Punisher/Patch/OBW/Spidey/etc. Keep the people you'd be playing with. I doubt you're using more than 6 covers right now anyway.

I've had 4 consecutive Top 1 finishes in the subs. with a 65 Patch/60 OBW/70 Spidey. This works.

Unknown

I'm not doing this. You're just letting them know you're okay with being $hit upon by making poor decisions that disrespects your play time.

Unknown

It doesn't work anymore...Died over 100 times, and nothing....Still 230 for 1st mission...

Kelbris

Toxicadam wrote:

I'm not doing this. You're just letting them know you're okay with being $hit upon by making poor decisions that disrespects your play time.

That's fine. Do what makes you happy.

Kelbris

WilliamK99 wrote:

It doesn't work anymore...Died over 100 times, and nothing....Still 230 for 1st mission...

Are you sure it doesn't work on any of the missions? A couple of them default at 230.

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

WilliamK99 wrote:

It doesn't work anymore...Died over 100 times, and nothing....Still 230 for 1st mission...

Are you sure it doesn't work on any of the missions?

I can't even get the 1st mission done in sub event to open rest of missions... Refuse to pay for boosts anymore...

Kelbris

I just brought a 190/191/190 down to 166/167/166 with one fight loss. Should still be working.

Hulk11

I've seen levels drop for me. I have to try this just to keep going I think.

Unknown

It may make a difference if you routinely kept your missions floored during the past three sub events. When I finally clued in to the full depth of this system, I spent an hour or two retreating to get every single mission in the event to bottom out. From there, I would routinely retreat 4 times after each fight to keep the levels low. Works like a charm. Never had to use a boost after that.

I am not doing my full set of main bracket clears until about three hours from now, but I just tested The Who, my first try since the update, and it did not skyrocket every mission to 230 like some have reported. I am guessing, again, that this is because I had kept all my missions floored previously.

And retreating, not dying, has always worked fine for me. Frankly, you want missions with MORE freebie heroes, because they regen their health for free every retreat. Family Reunion I is the best, because you get Patch and OBW, so you can do 4 retreats per character on your roster. Usually by the time I worked my way through my 1* characters, the one I started with would have healed to full.

Kelbris

wathombe wrote:

It may make a difference if you routinely kept your missions floored during the past three sub events. When I finally clued in to the full depth of this system, I spent an hour or two retreating to get every single mission in the event to bottom out. From there, I would routinely retreat 4 times after each fight to keep the levels low. Works like a charm. Never had to use a boost after that.

I am not doing my full set of main bracket clears until about three hours from now, but I just tested The Who, my first try since the update, and it did not skyrocket every mission to 230 like some have reported. I am guessing, again, that this is because I had kept all my missions floored previously.

And retreating, not dying, has always worked fine for me. Frankly, you want missions with MORE freebie heroes, because they regen their health for free every retreat. Family Reunion I is the best, because you get Patch and OBW, so you can do 4 retreats per character on your roster. Usually by the time I worked my way through my 1* characters, the one I started with would have healed to full.

How many levels is it going down by per retreat?

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

How many levels is it going down by per retreat?

This was before the update, have not tested since. Sometimes none, sometimes 10, sometimes 30. As the devs have said, it's a very complicated system that depends not only on YOUR performance, but also on other performances in your bracket. And retreating is WAY quicker than losing. Also, sometimes the mission in which I was retreating would already be bottomed out, but it would be lowering other missions in the sub or the main per retreat.

I shudder to see the equations behind this thing.

Hulk11

Shucks. I don't even have the missions all available yet. I can't drop them lower on certain ones.

Kelbris

wathombe wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

How many levels is it going down by per retreat?

This was before the update, have not tested since. Sometimes none, sometimes 10, sometimes 30. As the devs have said, it's a very complicated system that depends not only on YOUR performance, but also on other performances in your bracket. And retreating is WAY quicker than losing. Also, sometimes the mission in which I was retreating would already be bottomed out, but it would be lowering other missions in the sub or the main per retreat.

I shudder to see the equations behind this thing.

I think it has to do with how much health is lost. I let two people die and it went down by about 20 levels. Did three retreats and it went down about 12. Then, I let those people die (who all had under 100 health) and the levels didn't go down at all. I'm gonna throw Rag/Hulk/Doom at them real quick and see what happens.

Dying takes me all of 30 seconds since I play quickly, so it doesn't really take me much effort.

Kelbris

Hulk11 wrote:

Shucks. I don't even have the missions all available yet. I can't drop them lower on certain ones.

It's not based on each mission. Losing in one mission lowers ALL of them. Use one from the main mission.

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

wathombe wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

How many levels is it going down by per retreat?

This was before the update, have not tested since. Sometimes none, sometimes 10, sometimes 30. As the devs have said, it's a very complicated system that depends not only on YOUR performance, but also on other performances in your bracket. And retreating is WAY quicker than losing. Also, sometimes the mission in which I was retreating would already be bottomed out, but it would be lowering other missions in the sub or the main per retreat.

I shudder to see the equations behind this thing.

I think it has to do with how much health is lost. I let two people die and it went down by about 20 levels. Did three retreats and it went down about 12. Then, I let those people die (who all had under 100 health) and the levels didn't go down at all. I'm gonna throw Rag/Hulk/Doom at them real quick and see what happens.

Dying takes me all of 30 seconds since I play quickly, so it doesn't really take me much effort.

Yeah, but then that character's dead. I can retreat four times per character before it dies, so I don't burn through my roster nearly as quickly.

EDIT: Also, I don't think the variance you saw (20 v 12) was due to dying v retreating, it's due to the wonky math and the performance of the rest of the playerbase. There was very little mathematically predictable behavior to the way the missions lowered when I retreated, and it was pretty controlled. Family Reunion I would sometimes go UP after a retreat, and sometimes go down. All the missions as a whole, however, steadily trended downward.

Hulk11

But I think I'm at the bottom for some of them, or at least the ones I can manage. I just did one I think that was at it's bottom. Onto the next mission but I need health. I'm gonna be facing that alot I think.

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

How many levels is it going down by per retreat?

Last time I tried (Family sub recently closed) you retreated 4-5 times selecting the 2 stock hero and a lvl6, and there was a drop by 5-10 levels on this mission. Others also decreased somewhat. Using up the last 5 heroes like that pulled all the missions to levels manageable for me (80-90 on first, going to 100-130ish later, except the last staying 230). Could go further if needed.

In one game overlooked a tommy gun taking ~2300 life from all team members. Winning with that loss resulted 20 levels down. All pre-update experience.

Dayv

WilliamK99 wrote:

It doesn't work anymore...Died over 100 times, and nothing....Still 230 for 1st mission...

Doesn't work for me either. Killed my whole roster (and I have all characters - not maxed, but present) without dropping a single fight below 230. Perhaps this is because I put a lot of work into the first three sub-brackets, placing second in each. Maybe I just need to heal everyone and try again!

Nope. Not gonna happen. The "definition of insanity" and all that.

NorthernPolarity

DayvBang wrote:

WilliamK99 wrote:

It doesn't work anymore...Died over 100 times, and nothing....Still 230 for 1st mission...

Doesn't work for me either. Killed my whole roster (and I have all characters - not maxed, but present) without dropping a single fight below 230. Perhaps this is because I put a lot of work into the first three sub-brackets, placing second in each. Maybe I just need to heal everyone and try again!

Nope. Not gonna happen. The "definition of insanity" and all that.

Think about it this way. For each mission you did, you need to retreat 5 times. Each sub had 9 missions, you probably did them twice each, so thats 18 missions done per sub * 3 subs * 5 retreats/mission = 270 retreats you need to do in order to undo all of your work. Pretty silly, but it is what it is.

Dayv

NorthernPolarity wrote:

DayvBang wrote:

Doesn't work for me either. Killed my whole roster (and I have all characters - not maxed, but present) without dropping a single fight below 230. Perhaps this is because I put a lot of work into the first three sub-brackets, placing second in each. Maybe I just need to heal everyone and try again!

Nope. Not gonna happen. The "definition of insanity" and all that.

Think about it this way. For each mission you did, you need to retreat 5 times. Each sub had 9 missions, you probably did them twice each, so thats 18 missions done per sub * 3 subs * 5 retreats/mission = 270 retreats you need to do in order to undo all of your work. Pretty silly, but it is what it is.

Yeeeeah. I did them at least 4 times each, sometimes more than six times each. So I'm looking at nearly 1000 retreats?

I'm going to go kick a puppy.

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

I'm going to go kick a puppy.

I have no words... reading that legitimately made me lol and feel horrible at the same time.

Kudos to you