There's challenging, and then there's this..

IronyMan

I've been with this game from day 1. I've only dropped about 5 bucks total but that's more than I've ever spent on a F2P. I've never really been one that is super strong but I've placed first in a tourney here and there. That being said, this game has become too hard to be fun for me. Even with pre-nerf Thor and Wolverine with full boosts I was having a bit of trouble with these 230 level teams but now? With the nerf and the boost cost upgrades? Who's doing as good or even close to where they were before? I hardly have a chance againstost of these teams that are so strong they could one shot half my guys if they get a power move off. This is just ridiculous.

Unknown

It took me 3 tries to beat the 230X3 mission that had Daken (which is probably the hardest because Daken's strike tiles are absolutely insane and you can't deny them at all without stuns). Consider winning that put the bracket away (#2 was going up in points and then just stopped when my points went up by 105 for that mission since he realizes he can't catch up at that point), I think that's a reasonable tradeoff in risk versus reward.

The solo Hood level 230 mission is quite easily beatable without boosts.

Unknown

As some will know, I have a high level team, but beating the 230s without +6 ap boosts is proving difficult, even for me. I seem to recall the DLC end boss on the original PQ being hard, but that was a straight up fight, one on one. Facing three Lv230s is probably the hardest challenge I've faced in a PQ game.

I think this has contributed to all the vitriol with the boost changes. If there wasn't this super crazy hard event going on, I wonder whether there would have been such a backlash. Boosts per se shouldn't be required, but with Thick as Thieves they have been an absolute must.

CFacto

I agree with all this. Perhaps our characters are now 'funbalanced' - I'm not having more fun, but never mind - but that makes the enemies completely unbalanced.

Wolverine can create a few 53 power strike tiles, eventually. Meanwhile a Hitman is spamming ridiculous strike tiles like there's no tomorrow.
Enemies have stupid amounts of health to chew through, which you now can't tackle as well with Wolverine's boosts and you have less frequent special attacks from, say, Thor or Ragnarok.

I quit

Unknown

Of course the 230X3 guys are hard, but even PvE is relative. If you can barely beat them once while others cannot, beating it once is all you need to have an insurmountable lead, given that 230X3 mission is almost always the one that's worth the most. Prior to the change it's like you can beat them 6 times with boosts but someone can beat them 16 times with boosts so you still lose. Now it might be 2 times versus 3 times, or even 0 times versus once.

Now I can understand if not being able to beat them causes you to fall well short of the progression reward, but looking at the current tournament there's more than enough points for people to hit the maximum progression reward (20K) without ever touching the 230X3 missions.

Spoit

The Ladder wrote:

As some will know, I have a high level team, but beating the 230s without +6 ap boosts is proving difficult, even for me. I seem to recall the DLC end boss on the original PQ being hard, but that was a straight up fight, one on one. Facing three Lv230s is probably the hardest challenge I've faced in a PQ game.

I think this has contributed to all the vitriol with the boost changes. If there wasn't this super crazy hard event going on, I wonder whether there would have been such a backlash. Boosts per se shouldn't be required, but with Thick as Thieves they have been an absolute must.

I don't know about anyone else, but yeah, I could maybe see phantron's points about it, if it weren't for the fact that you have 2 sets of runs of ~10 missions that you run twice to deplete. All at 230.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

It took me 3 tries to beat the 230X3 mission that had Daken (which is probably the hardest because Daken's strike tiles are absolutely insane and you can't deny them at all without stuns). Consider winning that put the bracket away (#2 was going up in points and then just stopped when my points went up by 105 for that mission since he realizes he can't catch up at that point), I think that's a reasonable tradeoff in risk versus reward.

The solo Hood level 230 mission is quite easily beatable without boosts.

try beat it again... apparently Daken has been nerf as well in the mission... when you match 3 green tile... it only generate one attack strike tile... which deal lesser damage to you currently... should be no problem now if you have a stunner or high damage character in your team to prevent Daken from healing bacck..

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

I think this has contributed to all the vitriol with the boost changes. If there wasn't this super crazy hard event going on, I wonder whether there would have been such a backlash. Boosts per se shouldn't be required, but with Thick as Thieves they have been an absolute must.

I think this is the main sticking point. The boosts costs got changed during this exceptionally hard event so the cost increase hurts more. Maybe the first few missions should have been level capped or something to make the event more palatable, with just the last few peaking at 230.

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

As some will know, I have a high level team, but beating the 230s without +6 ap boosts is proving difficult, even for me. I seem to recall the DLC end boss on the original PQ being hard, but that was a straight up fight, one on one. Facing three Lv230s is probably the hardest challenge I've faced in a PQ game.

I think this has contributed to all the vitriol with the boost changes. If there wasn't this super crazy hard event going on, I wonder whether there would have been such a backlash. Boosts per se shouldn't be required, but with Thick as Thieves they have been an absolute must.

You do raise something I think is important, though maybe not in the grand scheme. Most changes, notably ones that make freebies harder to get at, are met with wailing from self-styled "mid-range players" angry about people up top having stuff they don't. I can sort of see where the resentment comes from with something like the Elite tournament, though I think it's inappropriate - it's not for you, of course you're not going to win anything! - but throughout this event people have been complaining about these mythical high-level players/teams that can stomp it all with ease. THE team for this event is a Wolverine (pretty much Patch now, though Astonishing remains workable), OBW, and imo probably Loki, though Spider-Man is good, too. Patch's level barely matters beyond 50ish because of the buff curve. These are not exotic characters that no one has. Grinding 20+ lv230 missions into dust on an eight-hourly schedule is practically impossible without boosts regardless of roster, and no small undertaking with them. In this instance, your enemy is not the people binning those Patch covers you want but apparently didn't grind hard enough for, it's The Man.

I've just turned my entire roster into sausage meat in an effort to pull the levels down to something a bit more sane. Threw Iron Man under the bus a couple more times for good measure, because those Iron Men sure do bounce back. Cover Her is at 197 now. Not completely sure that was worth the trouble. We need more characters asap if they're using this scaling again. Suppose I could grab some standard tokens and fill my open slots with dupes.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Of course the 230X3 guys are hard, but even PvE is relative. If you can barely beat them once while others cannot, beating it once is all you need to have an insurmountable lead, given that 230X3 mission is almost always the one that's worth the most. Prior to the change it's like you can beat them 6 times with boosts but someone can beat them 16 times with boosts so you still lose. Now it might be 2 times versus 3 times, or even 0 times versus once.

Now I can understand if not being able to beat them causes you to fall well short of the progression reward, but looking at the current tournament there's more than enough points for people to hit the maximum progression reward (20K) without ever touching the 230X3 missions.

I agree with this statement.

Also, I'd like to add that as someone who's only been playing since December, I was never able to beat any of the 230 level stages. My heroes are still in their 40-50ies level-wise. I was always just fine about not being able to touch those dudes.

I'm also curious at what level people's characters were back when you could beat them, because I always assumed that you needed your 3* heroes to be around level 100 or so to take on the LV230 guys.

My issue is that some of the starting battles of the Maggia events has me fighting LV100+ "goons" which is ridiculous when my heroes are 50 levels lower.

Unknown

Milkrain wrote:

I'm also curious at what level people's characters were back when you could beat them, because I always assumed that you needed your 3* heroes to be around level 100 or so to take on the LV230 guys.

My issue is that some of the starting battles of the Maggia events has me fighting LV100+ "goons" which is ridiculous when my heroes are 50 levels lower.

Spider-Man in his current state trivializes essentially anything relative to anyone else, because he can keep anything stunned, eliminating much of the need for denial and actually dealing with what incoming skills get through. Other than that, you've never needed 3*s for this stuff. Buffed 2*s have always been able to do it. Captain America's been really good in more than one event. **Wolverine could solo 240s at level 85 when he was buffed a while back, but that was when they were still using flat multipliers like PvP and that turned him into an avatar of Shiva or something at 85. You seem to be overlooking the fact your heroes are buffed, so their effective level is higher than displayed. They use curvy buffs now that tend to make you max-equivalent at about half way, and only a little more than max when maxed. Unfortunately this event's a pretty bad example, because the buff on everyone except Patch is fairly negligible if they're at a reasonable level.

Unknown

I realize it will vary by bracket but I want to scream at the phone sometimes when I am outside of top10 in main bracket staring at every level with 230s and now I see that top 10 has rosters lead by 40 or 60 lvl characters its even more befuddling. They get easier lower level fights for more points than me....great. only saving grace is they probably had to use boosts too even for their lvl 70 maggia.

Unknown

Completely agree with this. It's no fun having my team of "super-heroes" getting killed by one shot from a Maggia tommy gun. Every single enemy I'm fighting is level 230! I don't mind a challenge but this is just not fun. My max level guys are getting wiped out by generic goons.