Changes Coming For 4/30/15

GrumpySmurf1002

All of the changes look excellent. The end times especially are appreciated, that extra hour for me will make a world of difference. That said:

Having the same group of buffed characters for Story and Versus is going to be very taxing on player rosters, especially with these MMR changes kicking the bleep out of any sustained climbing.

So speaking of MMR changes.... Has any thought gone into moving the progression rewards, especially in shield sim where, at least in our alliance, contributions were way, way down because of the difficulty climbing them.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

New Story Event Schedule
Starting on 4/30 all of our Story events will last either 3, 4, or 7 days and will fit into a week-long cycle.

We’ve removed the downtime between Story events - each one now is immediately followed by the next.

We’ve made some updates to the events themselves too, streamlining them. We’ve standardized sub-event lengths to be 24 or 48 hours, combined sub-events in places where two were running concurrently, and standardized rewards across sub-events.

Any chance you'll be rotating out some of the villains on nodes in the story events? I suggested this in Villain/Hero rotation in PvE events. Currently, Juggernaut, Venom, Yelena, Daken, Bullseye, Ragnarok, and Moonstone are far and away too overused in Story events. Pylgrim had a good idea.

Pylgrim wrote:

In Thick as Thieves there is ONE node where you have to face Iron man and Magneto. Turns out they are Skrulls! Such a convenient flavourful way of allowing you to fight against heroes even in villain-themed stories. It is so silly that they never brought them up again.

That suggests some new PvE Story events
Skrull Unstable ISO-8

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Skrull The Hunt

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Skrull The Hulk

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Skrull Thick as Thieves

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Skrull ISO-8 Brotherhood
Skrull Prodigal Sun

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Skrull Deadpool VS MPQ

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Skrull Enemy of the State

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Skrull Meet Rocket & Groot

There might be one extra frame in the story mentioning skrulls, but it would be the same event with Juggernaut, Venom, Yelena, Daken, Bullseye, Ragnarok, and Moonstone replaced by other characters.

Thanks for the suggestion, Nonce! Good to see you're back with us. We're doing some extensive re-works especially in the Juggernaut and Venom heroic chapters to reduce the number of repetitive Juggernaut/Venom missions. Other events may also see similar updates.

slidecage

Alexraven wrote:

I am a little hesitant about the PVP buffs making pvp that was recently made harder even harder on top of that. (Barely hit 10 season progression, when normally I'm well over due to MMR changes)

Also a little hesitant about the back to back events with no break.

However, I am willing to give both a shot and otherwise love the other changes being made. Especially changes to standardizing and revamping existing PVE's

Now we just need a revamp of the Simulator progression rewards and I think we're pretty well set.

And I realize that a specific date for release can't be given for R75, but any details on what effects it's going to have would be appreciated so that we can decide if its worth continuing to wait till the update and hoarde ISO, or go ahead and start spending again.

Really there are breaks in the PVE.... Say you join a sunday event that ends in 4 ays and pick the XXX tme you could pick a later time on the thursday event and have a break. its just non stop if you keep picking the same time

I would guess the next PVE is gaunlet but Since they want to keep it week long it should be

Thursday 3 day event
Sunday 7 day gaunlet

Bowgentle

Did you really have to destroy the best PVP time slot for European players?

Everything else got shifted a single hour, instead of the old 10 PM CET slot, which was completely switched around.

So instead of 4 pm CET you now have 1pm CET which probably makes no difference to your US user base but a huge difference to Europe.

But yay to 24/48 hr subs!

Adam12

All of these changes sound great, guys.

Can we get a little more clarification on the streamlined sub events? Does that mean for ISO-8 Brotherhood, for example, which had two concurrent subs running throughout the event, that one of the two subs is gone? Or that it's been combined into one map, so to speak? Just asking.

Loved the Ultron event, btw.

slidecage

Old Story: 9a / 3p / 6p / 12 midnight / 3a
New Story: 7a / 12 noon / 5p / 11p / 2a

so first should start thur at 7am so hopefully a preview last weds night


This first PVE is going to be Very very bad for tons of people. Why you ask.

1. its going to be a 3 day event
2.. the 2nd stage of ultron will be running at the same time

the sunday PVE shouldnt be hurt that bad since it will be the final day and most will have all rewards

Unknown

Adam12 wrote:

All of these changes sound great, guys.

Can we get a little more clarification on the streamlined sub events? Does that mean for ISO-8 Brotherhood, for example, which had two concurrent subs running throughout the event, that one of the two subs is gone? Or that it's been combined into one map, so to speak? Just asking.

Loved the Ultron event, btw.

Not all of the changes to all of the events are locked in, but we're trying to remove places where multiple sub-events are happening at the same time. Exactly how that works out will be determined on an event to event basis. Sorry I can't give more specifics.

fmftint

Normalized boosted characters across all events for the week sounds like a drain

GrumpySmurf1002

Ok one more question on top of my MMR question.

Versus currently end (for me) Sunday pm, Wed am, Friday pm. Since the same characters will be boosted for Story, does the 7 day Story cycle overlap with the Versus schedule, at least in terms of finish times?

Unknown

Please re consider taking out the downtime between pve events. Im in a large pve alliance and burnout is a constant issue. Or please explain why this was thought to be a good idea. One morning a week i wake up not needing to play before work. Now thats gone

slidecage

L-Boogie wrote:

Please re consider taking out the downtime between pve events. Im in a large pve alliance and burnout is a constant issue. Or please explain why this was thought to be a good idea. One morning a week i wake up not needing to play before work. Now thats gone

how?

Say you pick 9am end time start mon ends thur next start friday

have to play monday. tue weds, thurs end... next event friday how was you getting a day off?

Der_Lex

Sounds like good changes all across the board. Good job!

fmftint

Increased odds of pulling a 3* to 28%, no more vault. However you have a lower chance of pulling a particular 3*. And what happens as more and more are added to the pool?

Unknown

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

Hey All,

Miles from Demiurge here to announce some upcoming changes for the next Season. Not all of these changes are in Versus Events, but will start on Thursday 4/30 concurrently with Season XIV.

Higher Chances of 3-stars in Packs
The percentage of 3-Star covers in Heroic and event packs is increasing! The percentage of the 1x Heroic pack that is 3-Star covers goes from about 23% to about 28% of the pack.

Deadpool Daily Quest and Standard (500 Iso-8) packs aren’t affected by this change.

All 3-Stars Return to Packs
Now that we’ve got room for them, as of 4/30, all 3-Star characters will be returning to heroic and event packs.

The increased proportion of new character releases that are 4-stars, a number of increases to the rate at which 3-stars are earned, and the increased availability of Hero Points mean that we can dispense with character rotation.

Weekly Buffed Characters
We’re bringing back our weekly buffed groups for Season XIV! Every week, a group of characters will be Powered-Up across all Story and Versus events.

This group of Powered-Up characters will include:
2 x 4-Star characters who will scale up to a level range of 75 to 350
5 x 3-Star characters who will scale up to a level range of 45 to 240
2 x 2-Star characters who will scale up to a level range of 20 to 150
2 x 1-Star characters who will scale up to a level range of 5 to 85

These characters will be Powered-Up in all of the week’s events.

We’ve reduced the size of the buffs from the last time we did a week-long buff, during Season XII, based on your feedback. We also did some work in the R74 update that allows us to display the buffs in event rules a little more clearly.

New Story Event Schedule
Starting on 4/30 all of our Story events will last either 3, 4, or 7 days and will fit into a week-long cycle.

We’ve removed the downtime between Story events - each one now is immediately followed by the next.

We’ve made some updates to the events themselves too, streamlining them. We’ve standardized sub-event lengths to be 24 or 48 hours, combined sub-events in places where two were running concurrently, and standardized rewards across sub-events.

Tweaks to ending times
Based on player feedback, we’ve also adjusted the available end-times for events. These will also begin on Thursday 4/30 with the start of Season XIV.

In Eastern time:
Old Versus: 10a / 4p / 7p / 1a / 4a (or 10p / 4a / 7a / 1p / 4p)
New Versus: 8a / 1p / 6p / 12 midnight / 3a

Old Story: 9a / 3p / 6p / 12 midnight / 3a
New Story: 7a / 12 noon / 5p / 11p / 2a

And here I was expecting bad news -

As I requested at the beginning of the year, increased chances of 3* is awesome and needed.

All 3* in packs makes sense. Thank you for getting rid of the stupid vaulting system. MTG doesn't do it.

Weekly buffs in both PVE and PVP is good. Sort of. Although it makes it easier on who to focus, it also makes it that so your health packs will be even more strained.

I hope the standardization means we'll finally have some weekend events. Events should not be 7 days.

I hope standardization means all events have alliance rewards.

I hope standardization means all events will have a similar number of nodes, etc.

Thank you for making events 24 or 48 hours and not 36.

mags1587

The multiple buffs to characters in PvP can really impact your ability to score placement and progression awards, as the MMR changes have. Are there any changes to the progression award or placement award structure coming or being considered?

I'm not sure I like that the buffs to characters are across PvE and PvP events. That makes it tough on a player who actually wants to play both PvP and PvE.

I do appreciate that the PvP end time for my usual slice now ends at midnight so I can get to sleep an hour earlier.

The non-stop PvE events sound like a recipe for burnout. Especially if you keep to the current methods of releasing new characters. Some of the PvEs did need to be reworked, though, so glad to hear that will happen -- even if it does mean my guide is outdated now.

Unknown

slidecage wrote:

L-Boogie wrote:

Please re consider taking out the downtime between pve events. Im in a large pve alliance and burnout is a constant issue. Or please explain why this was thought to be a good idea. One morning a week i wake up not needing to play before work. Now thats gone

how?

Say you pick 9am end time start mon ends thur next start friday

have to play monday. tue weds, thurs end... next event friday how was you getting a day off?

Not a full day just the morning before a new event. Mine ended at midnight and i start the new the next day at 1230 on lunch...now ill have to start a new one the next morning

Scoregasms

If you could just remove Moonstone and Yelena from the Packs, I think my 3* chances may shoot up by 87.3204924234% Just saying

tanis3303

babinro wrote:

Buffing a select group of characters is the same as NERFING THE REST.

^This.
Don't get me wrong, I have a ridiculously deep roster, and will probably end up benefiting from this change more than I'm hurt by it. But I still don't like it. It flies in the face of the roster diversity you folks try so hard to foster. Not using the boosted characters is just asking to be batted around the PvP like a pinata, and with the new MMR this will be even worse. PvP became a huge chore when the health changes went thru. Now we're getting a group of characters that will have even MORE health to chew thru, on top of increased ability damage, making people that don't have the week's featured "A Team" probably just sit out the weeks PvP events. Sure, you can try to compete, but if you're not rocking a 240/240/290 team, or worse, a 350/350/290 team, you better have extra phones/tablets on hand, because yours is probably going to meet the wall in a fit of frustration as you fight tooth and nail vs drastically more powerful opponents for 22 points and come back to see that you lost 785.

That said, mad props for the rest of the changes, I can't find anything to complain about in the rest of this announcement!

Unknown

If vaulting is dead, what does that mean with regards to the addition of new characters to the Heroic pack?

Will that still be done at the start of every season or will it be done on an as needed basis?

thanos8587

vaulting is gone!!!! ding dong the witch is dead. huzzaahhhhh!!!

good stuff all, now fix matchmaking so that i dont see maxed teams after seed teams (if there are seed teams, fix that too please)