This Isn't Fun

DrStrange-616

SnowcaTT wrote:

It's easy to spend months on this when each round takes a couple of hours. But you only have one round! Except when your alliance beats ultron, so then you have another. Or when the rounds rotate in the 8 hours, then you have another. This is the longest grind I think I've ever done, and we're barely 24 hours in. And you need 20 people to be on that grind.

Test time could have easily been months just to play this thing.

For some reason I doubt anyone actually even played the whole thing. If they had, surely they could see the problems. It is a cool new event, but it's soooooo grindy and costly health-wise. You can't see the full leaderboard, etc. There's a lot of good in this, but also some headscratching things that I can only imagine they didn't see because they didn't test it properly. I don't know.

It's things like - they certainly pushed certain heroes leading up to the event, but then they didn't increase the flow of ISO to level them. In fact, they did the opposite and basically had people put a freeze on leveling while they wait for R75. Small roster are having a devil of a time with this event. If the ISO change had come earlier or they'd even managed to share the basics of their plan so people could level some, but ... instead, radio silence.

There is so much good here, but it's muddied by some wtfery.

Unknown

I enjoy the concept, but it almost feels like this is a way to drive health pack sales. The strike tiles and attack tiles really add up on the sentry battles.

The Ultron battle is a bit more creative. I like that the lower row gets destroyed, it's an interesting mechanic to mitigate user special tiles, but the bomb presence makes using any sort of board shakeup extremely risky. It creates a dependence on straight damaging powers, and renders many characters a potential liability.

Overall, this event is frustrating me more than I'm enjoying it. Too much damage is getting through, and the destruction of parts of columns end up eliminating a lot of matches for me, making tile collection to use my powers take forever, which in turn makes battles seem endless. There are just too many gimmicks happening in one event to make this very fun.

Pylgrim

Sometimes I have to wonder why people even play a game. Whenever they stumble upon a bit of hardship they immediately bail.

-I was used to steamroll 2* teams all the way to 700 points under the old MMR; now I have to battle 3* teams! Whine and/or anger!
-I used to crush any team you could put in front of me by simply collecting 8 green with my X-Force; now he's nerfed and no other characters are that powerful! Whine and/or anger!
-Characters now have more health so they take longer to kill, increasing the risk of my team getting damaged! Whine and/or anger!
-And now this...

What's the point then? A game is literally no more than a series of increasingly or consistently difficult hardships in a controlled environment that require ingenuity, effort and/or practice in order to master and whose greatest reward is precisely the satisfaction of doing so. But sometimes it seems to me that people would like this "game" to be no more than a series of screens reading "Congratulations! You are a Winner! Aren't you the best? Yes you are! Validation! Here are your 4* cover rewards that you have earned by the potency of the glory of your magnificence alone! Good job!" etc.

How about instead of whining and demanding a reduction in difficulty you try of finding better ways of playing the game? I don't have a fully levelled roster nor tons of 4*s or anything noteworthy but I try and find combinations and strategies that get me the best results. Ultron boss nodes (now at level 300 in round 6)? 166 Hulk, 144 GSBW, 105 Mystique. hardly get damaged. Sentry nodes? Just use the buffed avengers. Those nodes are more about choosing carefully the order in which you kill sentries, board control with matches and bringing protect tile users than about bombastic powers. I friggin' defeated Ultron Prime 5 (and sentries, all at levels 189) with 105 She-hulk, 130 Loki and 140 Black Panther! By the end of 6 sentries nodes, 6 attacks on boss Ultron and one Ultron Prime node, I still had 1 Health pack left and got a few Cap America battles under the belt as well.

If you man (or woman, as appropriate) up to the challenge, you'll find that you can have and will be having fun.

fmftint

Ludaa wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Sentry nodes aren't bad once you understand the mechanics, you must keep between 5-7 enemy special tiles on the board.
Fighters Swarm when less than 5 tiles are on board
Gunners Meltdown when there are more than 7
keep within that range and youll have no problems

5 red Cage is the MVP for sentry nodes. Been using Cage/Required/XF for every survival node and have yet to run out of . XF/Hulk/Fist for UPrime.
I'm a vet and I haven't had any issues with the high scaling, though I understand this pve is probably favoring those with big rosters. My one gripe is that we're competing with our own alliance for the early round points, have yet to see if that prevents anyone from getting a final progress reward.

I thought we disliked seeing noob rosters in the top ten of PvE? Now there's a reason to level maybe? Anyways, round 7 and it's still pretty fun for me.

Ive been using Patch, Groot, Essential, no failures yet. Alliance just started round 7

GrumpySmurf1002

SnowcaTT wrote:

It's easy to spend months on this when each round takes a couple of hours. But you only have one round! Except when your alliance beats ultron, so then you have another. Or when the rounds rotate in the 8 hours, then you have another. This is the longest grind I think I've ever done, and we're barely 24 hours in. And you need 20 people to be on that grind.

Test time could have easily been months just to play this thing.

There's a lot of self-imposed pressure in this event because it's new and no one really knew what to expect other than what info the devs pushed out. So there was a lot of (justified) feeling that you need to grind from the word go to be able to open Scarlet Witch in time.

With the dust now settled, if you and/or your alliance is/are playing so intensely that you're not missing a refresh, you're going to be done with 1.5-2 days to spare. Plus once you get to level 6, you have to take a break, unless you time the essential refresh perfectly (Ultron needs 151 hits, full alliance clear is only 120).

The 2nd go around should be easier to manage, from an alliance labor perspective, now that there are (hopefully) no surprises.

GrumpySmurf1002

Bramphousian wrote:

I enjoy the concept, but it almost feels like this is a way to drive health pack sales. The strike tiles and attack tiles really add up on the sentry battles. .

I haven't bought a health pack yet, and I've been balancing it, the end of Identity Theft, Shield Sim, DDQ, and initial climb in First Avenger.

I've also used 16-18 characters so far, and have been in a perpetual state of health pack refreshing today, but haven't had to buy one yet.

Wonko33

it's fun, just different and we always see freakouts like this when something is new

new concept, new game mechanics, new minions . Hey all my old tricks don't work, no ssssssssss Sherlock

Unknown

Actually, the only thing I don't like so far is that success depends heavily on how your teammates are playing. I joined an alliance with 15 players after missing the first 2 rounds because of the glitch and only 8 of us are playing. I was quite frustrated until I opened 1 SW from a token. At least now I won't be miss a node in an upcoming pve that needs her. She doesn't look that interesting though so missing her covers from the Prime nodes doesn't hurt much.

I like how the sentry nodes are quite challenging. Roster depth is very useful in this pve. I've been changing chars all the time because unless I use Cage, at least one char after each match is in need of healing.

Heartburn

i think the board matches with their passives is a bit too much especially when they have passives that move the board. The scaling seems to be too much for lower level players to handle. the event doesn't seem fun if they are just there to throw their characters to be slaughtered. we just moved to lvl 4 ultron with 13 players in the fray looks like it will be a close one.

i started of with 4000-5000 opponents loosing 1 character per fight seemed normal until i started bring luke cage. lost one fight in the essential nodes and it look like it scaled back the opponents to 3000-3500 opponents the next attempt. I have been mainly been using luke+ 3 thor with some great success second wave i usually have enough AP to double call the storm or once into luke cage to finish every one off saving for the end. Luke cages maxed yellow takes a big chunk out of ultron as well.

i been rotating in characters patch not so effective when paired with buffed avengers as he can't tank well and becomes a liability. they can do more damage to me with when i use his only good if saving to use with a bunch of cheap abilities or team damage abilities to finish off.

subbed in dare devil in a couple fights seems good on essential nodes with so much board movement me or the opponents can match his red more rapidly then normal. his blue is pretty good once you get rid or 1 or 2 sentries and can causally match for ap before wave 2. his seems ok but slow to use making it not that effective. He is **** versus ultron when to see if his red would activate on bottom board destruction it doesn't. haven't bother taking him to ultron prime as his hive mind would likely overwrite his trap.

Unknown

I don't have char above lvl94 and most of my avengers even lower, but i really like new event and doing fine in it. Against Ultron i use GSBW, against sentries anything with protect tiles, Cap or 1* Iron Man. Sentries are fun event, since they make matches board don't get stalled and you can dig your way out of trouble? unlike with f.ing ninjas where with bad board you are screwed no matter what. Like poster above me said, watch the number of special tiles. About 12 people actively doing this event in our alliance and i fully expect we beat final stage and i get 1mil progression.

Thanks to devs for trying something new and interesting. My only complaint is, they should have seeded alliances over time, we didnt all had to start in the same minute, probably wouldn't have server issues this way.

pmorcs

Y'all cray, this is a blast. Half my alliance doesn't even want to bother with this pvp, just kill more robots! And I'm not seeing why anyone thinks beating ultron all the way down is supposed to be easy..

Stony

I'm having a lot of fun with this event. It's something different, it's challenging and it's requiring me to use my roster to it's fullest capabilities. My only (minor) complaint is that there is too much going on. As someone else pointed out, Lcap is currently necessary for all 3 events. What people should remember - there's still over THREE days left. And most are already on 6 or close to it. You should be able to get at least one SWitch cover. Getting all three covers has ALWAYS been difficult and required commitment.

Unknown

I'm having a blast. Our alliance is only starting to find some resistance on 7, now, and I'm pretty sure ultron 8 will actually be kinda hard, but nothing, NOTHING like 395 Ares/Daken/Juggs

Sentries take a long time to get going. Use any combo that has some setup and big damage and you'll do fine. iron fist+bp, loki+patch, cyclops+gt, etc. Ultron himself is just about special tile management. I've been having some luck with (god forgive me) quicksilver hood lcap, but you can also spam damage with stuff like blade iron fist falcon, or pretty much anything you want. Grocket is great in it also.

Roswulf

I haven't burned out yet- all three of the varieties of fights are sufficiently different from the norm that I'm still engaged.

But we're a day and a half into the first of two Ultron runs, and I'm starting to tire of the same damn fight over and over. I haven't burned out yet, but I can't fathom the thought process that suggests running this event twice consecutively is anything but deeply foolish. The grind is so extensive, and so undisguised.

Unknown

I actually really enjoy it. I only have one maxed 3* and he's grocket. So he's not boosted but I've found the event to be really really fun. My alliance is just getting to tier 6 and starting to get the opportunity to earn scarlet witch awards but I like this. I have to burn a lot of health packs. But it's so much different then everything else that is existing in mpq right now that it's all i'm playing so it doesn't matter. Screw the heroic. What do I even get out of that anyway? Screw first avenger, even though my cap is high and i'd do really well squirrel girl as rewards? Do not want. All I can play is ultron and i'm having fun.

GuntherBlobel

I really like the Event. And this is just the first one they've designed like this. If they come up with tweaks in the future to make it a bit friendlier to RLF/casual Alliances, then I'm sold 100%.

As it is right now, it seems perfect for very special occasions like Summer blockbusters and game Anniversaries.

Scoregasms

Lol, round 8 just opened and Ultron is indeed level 400.

6M health bar, 26,260 per fight

Good luck!

Jakecin4791

Me: 3-match
AI: Swarm to 4-match to three, 3-matches
Me: 3-match special tiles in a color that doesn't do much for me
AI: Swarm to 4-match to cascade to 5-match, to 4-match
Me: 3-match special tiles... and go make a cocktail while the AI takes the next minute to chain moves
AI: Swarm to a gajillion strike, protect, attack tiles and crit tiles up the wazoo

Oh look... my 11K+ LCap now has 2K health 6 moves in.

Anyways, I'm sure you get the idea. I'm clearly bad at this game.
I'm also clearly a whiner, a complainer, and most of all I'm apparently neither woman nor man enough to figure out how to have a good time at this.

It feels pretty good to commiserate though. Damn.

Back to just the DDQ. For now I'm gonna give Ultron a miss and go floss my dog's teeth -- now that's a challenge I've been putting off for months.

Unknown

Swarm is about the same as taking two extra turns, and it's almost cumulative too because all kinds of cascades happens naturally after 3 Swarms. A lot of the time I'm wondering when I'm supposed to get to move anything.

ynglink

Jakecin4791 wrote:

Me: 3-match
AI: Swarm to 4-match to three, 3-matches
Me: 3-match special tiles in a color that doesn't do much for me
AI: Swarm to 4-match to cascade to 5 match, to 4-match
Me: 3-match special tiles... and go make a cocktail while the AI takes the next minute to chain moves
AI: Swarm to a gajillion strike, protect, attack tiles and crit tiles up the wazoo

Oh look... my 11K+ LCap now has 2K health 6 moves in.

Anyways, I'm sure you get the idea. I'm clearly bad at this game.
I'm also clearly a whiner, a complainer, and most of all I'm apparently neither woman nor man enough to figure out how to have a good time at this.

It feels pretty good to commiserate though. Damn.

Back to just the DDQ. For now I'm gonna give Ultron a miss and go floss my dog's teeth -- now that's a challenge I've been putting off for months.

The issue here is that you keep matching the special tiles and thus keep triggering Swarm. Don't do that at the beginning. I don't even bother matching the special tiles until after the swarm makers are gone.